Week 1. Day 5. Feel the earth

When I was twenty and worked for a long, hard season as a deckhand on a trawler in the Timor Sea, I became used to a constantly shifting surface. When we docked in Darwin for repairs, after weeks at sea, I stepped onto land and felt my legs buckle beneath me. I’d forgotten the solidity of land, the steady holding of gravity. What I remember is the strangeness of noticing the earth in a new way, as though I had never properly paid attention before.

Your body is the carrier of your creative work. It’s the site of your sensory experience as well as your emotional life.

When Carole King sings ‘I feel the earth move under my feet,’ she’s calling up a metaphor that works because of the sensory truth. When we fall in love (even that – falling – is a physical metaphor) – we feel it in our bodies.

Can you be grateful for this gift of your body, whatever its limitations? Can you celebrate it?

In particular, can you notice today you connect with the earth, in this vessel of your body? Take time today, if you can, to simply stand on the earth, barefoot if you are able. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Notice the pull of gravity. Attend to the precise sensations of heat or cold on your soles. Wriggle your toes, notice the grass or dirt or concrete.

If you can, lie on the ground and feel the earth beneath your whole body. Close your eyes and notice. Observe your physical self and its connection to the earth. Writing begins with noticing, so take the time to notice your own connection to the earth.

If you have a character you’re thinking about, try to step now into their skin – stand on their earth, lay on the ground as if you are in their body. Let your body be the guide into your imagination.

Imagine this character standing on their own soil. Perhaps it’s someone you’ve never met, a stranger arriving on your page; perhaps it’s you, or a younger version of you. Let them wriggle their toes. What ground is beneath their feet? Concrete? Rock? What is happening in this person’s body? Let them also lie on the ground and feel the earth.

We walk our characters through the world, in their bodies. And through our own writerly bodies, we can access the world.