What does Soul Rooting mean and why is it the name of this blog?

I’ve been longing my whole life for a spirituality that doesn’t deny our physical bodies and earthly material lives.

Growing up Catholic, while never directly spoken to me in specific words, it was implied by the Church that the body is shameful. There was also no inclusion of the wonders of nature in worship.

And it’s through the physical body and the material world that human beings experience God. There is no other way for humans to experience anything except through our material reality.

It was my perception that the Church denied this reality.

(Lately, I’ve learned that this may have been a false assumption on my part after digging deeper into Christianity, but that is a topic for another post.)

We can’t deny that we perceive the world, learn, experience, and gain wisdom through this material human life on the physical earth. Therefore, I believe this needs to be a part of spirituality.

This blog attempts to fulfill my inner urge to integrate the material with the spiritual and to find some solidity and groundedness in an otherwise intangible, mysterious, and ethereal area of life.

I do believe human beings are all religious whether or not they think they are. It is in our nature. People create religions around all kinds of beliefs without intending to. Whether the focus is money, power, addictions, social justice, philosophy, or God, we all make certain things sacred – the center point that colors everything else.

So it is my intention both in my life and in this blog to sort out what kind of religion I follow rather than leave it to my whims and absentmindedness.

I yearn for something to surrender to.

Something steady, sturdy, and certain. But also transformational, transcendent, mystical, and holy.

I want direct experience with God.

But I also want something with deep-rooted history and symbolism.

For all my life up until my 40s, I assumed this meant starting spirituality from scratch. I looked into pagan earth-based spirituality, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I thought I could piece certain things together and then look within myself and find all the answers using nature as my guide.

I have gained some insight for sure. But I also have realized this path falls short. It lacks discipline, authority, and the wisdom of past teachers. It becomes chaotic to pick and choose which experts or gurus to listen to. Surrender becomes more difficult when there is nothing solid to hold you.

When everyone in your community believes something different, you’re starting with a fractured foundation.

Eventually, it all begins to crumble.

And building with the broken pieces is futile.

What are we even building? Can we agree on the process at all?

I can’t trust that these spiritual gurus know what they are talking about because they are busy selling their brand. I don’t knock them for doing so. I just don’t feel I can trust my soul with their word because they are fallible just like me.

And don’t get me started on all of the spiritual bypassing and the very same denial of the body, detachment, and longing to escape from the material world found within modern spirituality. That is what I thought I was leaving in the Church.

If you feel similarly lost or have experienced being let down by modern alternative spirituality and yearn for something grounded, I will be exploring this in future posts.

Even when it leads me into what I always considered “forbidden territory.”

I want a foundation I can trust.

I want my soul to grow roots into something True so that I bear good fruit in this world.

If you feel called to the Soul Rooting journey too, please leave a comment and introduce us to your own spiritual story.

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Nicole