Ground yourself!

So implore New Age practitioners seeking to keep the individual human being in some state of harmony with the Heavens of astrology. Metaphorically it’s the equivalent of the concept of ‘staying centered’, the metaphors typically coming from meditation, yoga, and other forms of self-development. ‘Grounding’ of course also has electrical metaphorical content, which becomes very apparent to those in cold dry climates who reach for a brass doorknob after shuffling across the carpet. Ungrounded electrical systems are inherently unstable, painfully clear to many people in third world countries without them, positive and negative charges running wild. I can feel the current running through my legs from my laptop computer here in Thailand. It feels like ants crawling on me, Mississippi red ants. You feel a current, albeit a weak one, when you grab your TV set’s rabbit-ear-antennas to adjust them. Lightning is the best example, potentiality looking for a place to occur, an accident waiting to happen. But don’t use the metaphor of femininity, a passive field luring the wrathful sky to its battleground. If you notice really carefully, in slow motion, lightning breaks toward the ground in stages. Before it reaches the ground, a spark will actually leap up to meet it, like a woman extending her cheek to receive a kiss. Sometimes the ground will actually initiate the strike. In any case there is a return of current from ground to cloud that is faster and fiercer than the original.

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