Grounded

I went to the lake yesterday to think about grounded-ness. I've heard walking by lake edges is good for grounding. And being grounded of course would be the opposite of the unsteadiness that is part of this vertigo episode.

One of my favorite quotes (it was my high school graduation theme) is from Thoreau: "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." Revisiting the actual quote, I realize that I never recall the part " your work need not be lost..." Why would anyone ever think it would be lost? Why would you not want your castles in the air? By this age (50) you know what people think of you. I'd say for the most part I'm recognized as a dreamer, and I never thought about the downside of that. Your work can be lost, or at least not reach its full fruition if you ignore the foundations.

The reason I liked this photo is even though I was thinking about grounding, I was attracted to the reflection of the cloud in the water. I was thinking that the cloud was the castle in the air and the water was the foundation. Trying to write about it though, water doesn't work too well as a foundation analogy.

I've cropped the plants and ground around the edge of the lake in this photo. I was thinking about all the different types of ground. The lake edge, the lake bed, the log that the turtles are using as ground, the horizon and ground in the distance, the water itself as a grounding medium for swans. But really, ground is ground. If you want to build a foundation, start with the ground. Viewing this photo without that ground (crop it) diminishes it.

Here's another one. The subject of this photo seems to be the swan, but the swan without the background, the water, the reflection, and the ground in the foreground, would not be nearly as compelling. My head's in the clouds, my heart's always been with the water, I'm going to spend some time looking at the ground and things that are close to it, one step at a time.