As an element-based person, I do not remember a time without some form of element connection. I did a lot of dancing when I was little. Dancing which was made a little easier for me because of that element connection. But with the inter-connectedness of all, dancing also allowed my spatial awareness to blossom and root itself in me and in the elements. I am also quite a bit of a home body. I do love to travel, but I will always return home. I think of myself as a tree, one who can take walks. Earth and wood are two of my main elements which means as a rooted tree I am both, and still I maintain connections to water, air, light, fire, stone, metal, ether and star. My roots allow me to stay grounded when I am away from home; my roots are my very feet. When I am home, my roots stretch deep into the earth for all the nutrients and support they need. And when I am home, my view is a bird's eye view from the top of my strongly supported tree. With my spatial awareness centering is very much a 360° experience. As a walking tree, I am usually able to maintain my center after all these years of practice. But there are times and places when maintaining my tree form and my center and my grounding all disintegrates. Sometimes/places, it is a seeping sense of loss. Others, it is a sense of floating in some foreign substance. Others still, it is as if I am wrapped in a gauze and cannot move comfortably nor see clearly. I have learned only some of the markers for this disintegration. I will learn many more as I continue on the journey. But at this point as I continue to walk each step, breathe each breath in the now, I open my awareness to all that is. In this opening to all that is, I am opening to all the lessons, whether it is how to maintain my center and grounding or if it is how to notice when I am off-center and uprooted.

I first must notice I am lost, before I can find my way home. With the breath, I notice there is something strange muting my hearing. With the breath, I notice there is a blurring of my sight. With the step, I notice my leg doesn't move smoothly. With the step, I notice an emptiness below me. And once I am aware that I have lost my tree form, lost my center, lost my grounding, I breathe into the tree that I am. I step into the earth that I am. I breathe into my heart space. I breathe into the center that is all. I have found my way home.