Grounding and Balance

Recently, someone close to me brought up being grounded. I don’t mean grounded in the sense of being restricted from something such as when parents may punish their children. I am talking about the personal grounding of energy and being. It is different than being balanced. Being grounded and being balanced are two separate concepts and states of being. I as a human being and a witch may often use grounding techniques and feel quite grounded but rarely find reprieve in perfect Balance.

One way to look at the differences between grounding and balance, we can look at two different visualizations. When a witch is about to use magick or she/he is simply feeling out of sorts she/he may use breath and focus to ground her/his energy so she/he feels more in control of her/his own state of being. To understand grounding let’s imagine miss Witch, frantic and nervous and maybe even distracted before beginning a meeting, class, or ritual. She needs to ground her energy which is feeling fairly chaotic and out of control and she needs to be able to focus.

Imagine miss Witch standing with both feet firmly planted on the ground as she roots her energy into the earth, or ground. She begins to focus her energy in a cycle to flow evenly and smoothly through her body, into the ground back into her body in a systematic flow. Maybe she needs to raise her energy level so she begins to focus on absorbing energies that surround her in the air, sky, trees, plants etc. When she is done she may appear calm, peaceful and even well put together. She is now ready to do the task at hand.

What we all seek is balance. Balance, unlike grounding, is more difficult to achieve. As we look at the universe, we see that there are a lot of polarities. these are day and night, happy  and sad, even male and female. But there is not always a perceived balance. Being balanced in the terms of witchcraft is similar to standing with feet planted on a balancing board. I’m sure you have seen them. They are a plank or board that sits on top of a round piece. The object is to keep both ends of the board off the ground at all times. In keeping it balanced, one may see the person on the balancing board teeter a little from one side to the other but no matter how good they are at it, they can only maintain this state for a specific amount of time. 

Keeping in perfect balance is virtually impossible however for a few short bursts it may be possible to temporarily be balanced, it is not possible for it to last more than a few seconds. Teetering even if ever so slightly from one side to the other is the constant. So in life as with the balancing board, we go through life leaning more to one side at one moment to leaning more on the other at next moment. keeping our balance as stable as possible and as close to even is a lot of work and impossible to maintain as a constant. It is not stable such as with grounding although one may find a perfect balance for a moment or two.

With balance, we strive to achieve it and to be as balanced as possible, knowing all along that the nature of life is imbalance or imperfection. We see balance in the seasons of the year. twice a year the day and night are equal. These are the two equinoxes.They are in complete balance. but the rest of the year, day and night is not in perfect balance, one is more prominent than the other. But, depending on your perspective, that imbalance is indeed the balance.

So, You may see me as grounded, but you may never see me in perfect balance. Always strive for balance and if you lose it, don’t worry, just keep striving for balance and don’t forget to ground along the way. No one is perfect and perfect balance isn’t constant.