Since When Did I Want To Be Grounded?

While perusing the oddities and treasures at a little local bead store, and finding all kinds of hippy woo woo delights, I came across a box of cute little bands made of hematite, each one costing less than a cup of coffee.

My partner picked one out of the box and handed it to me, and it fit the first finger I put it on.

It was shiny and pretty, and made me smile, like sparkly things often do. But, I hesitated to buy it, not because I was worried it would turn my finger green, but because I vaguely recalled about 20 years ago when I was attempting to sell my creations in a hippy store, and a strange woman told me something about hematite having some bad mojo thing about it.

How the words of some woman whose name I don’t even know that I met one time over 2 decades ago are still in my head, I don’t know, but they are. Even at the time, I got the impression that she was a bit on the wacky side, but still….her words made think.

I didn’t want an oddball half memory to make me miss out on something shiny any more than I wanted bad mojo, so I decided to text a non wacky and more trustworthy friend who makes beautiful jewelry with stones in her business.

She gets back to me later in the day and tells me that there’s no inherent bad mojo with hematite, that actually, it’s helpful for grounding. This seems like a good thing to me.

As a woman whose brain (and possibly her mood) is sort of semi occasionally on the verge of spinning out of control, a little grounding and stability sounds nice.

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this peaceful thought for even two minutes before I started to backtrack.

Doesn’t being grounded also imply being tethered, stuck  to the ground, and not going anywhere?

Faulty airplanes get grounded. Misbehaving children get grounded.

Why would I want that?

My online dictionary confirms the suspected dual meaning.

ground·ed

ˈɡroundid/

adjective

1. well balanced and sensible.
2. prohibited or prevented from flying.
   

While I’ve never actually used grounding as a disciplinary technique on my own kids, they, like everyone else who is under the age of 18, know that it is an unpleasant thing to be avoided. It means you’re busted and being punished by being trapped and unable to do what one normally would want to.

I want to soar, not be held back.

Having recently been freed from of a number of big and difficult entrapments, I have no desire to feel that weight again.

I like flying. I just don’t want to spin off out of control.

So, I found myself in a self created conundrum on the meaning of being grounded and the symbolism in this cheap little ring. 

I already had it on my finger, because I had impatiently bought it before hearing back from my friend, but I wondered if I really wanted to wear something grounding. 

It came off and was  abandoned for a few days in a drawer while I pondered. But when I saw it next, I was drawn again to the dark shine and the cool smoothness that caught my eye in the first place.

Today, I put the ring on as a conscious reminder to stay strongly rooted and focused on the things that are important to me~ an attempt to keep my mind from being distracted and flittering about in a million directions, or worse, whirling into a storm . 

The main this is, a ring isn’t keeping me stuck or holding me back and more than a word is.

Maybe grounded isn’t the right word to describe what I really want anyway? 

I just know that I want to soar freely and smoothly, enjoying the adventure. And I also want to keep my connections alive so I have a steady and stable base as my safe place to land. Being rooted sounds a lot better than being tethered.