The Foot to Earth Dance

Our feet connect us to the earth. As creators of Earth to Body natural skin care we think a lot about the feet. Your toes.  Your heels. Your arch.  Your soles.
Our feet connect to every organ and every other ‘spirit’ in the body.  Ask your reflexologist, osteopath, physio, massage therapist.   Ask a runner in training.  A football player.  Ask them if they prefer to practice in bare feet?

Rest. Stand. Walk. Trot. Run. Flee. All extraordinary ‘’feets.” And these incredible appendages can dictate how our entire body functions.

We believe in barefoot. Do you ever envy children who love to run, prance, jump barefoot?  They seem to fly. As concerned parents, we remind them to ‘Please put on your shoes.”  They oblige and the next moment, when no one is looking, they toss the shoes and run free.  They soar over rough ground, stones, and dance among the tree roots.   Fearless.

As a young child, I wore ‘oxfords’ and visited shoe stores where I could view my foot bones in those ‘insane cancer' machines.  That was the 50’s when new technology was always trusted.  We never really questioned NOT to wear shoes.

Reading Christopher McDougall’s ‘Born to Run’ has helped me to understand why barefoot is best.  Many athletes train only in bare feet.  The Tarahumara Indian, upon whom the book is based, wear bare feet until their early teens.   They then don thin sandals to help protect the feet on their long mountainous, canyon runs over rock and blade cutting cactus.  Some protection is necessary.  But ‘thin’ still allows the foot to experience the earth.

I wish barefoot were acceptable and possible. Imagine a potential job applicant arriving for an interview, barefoot?   A doctor in scrubs, operating, barefoot?  A high-rise crane operator climbing into the sky, barefoot.  A chef cooking up a storm, barefoot?  What about a firefighter in an intense blaze, barefoot?  Sometimes, just not practical.

When barefoot, we can exercise the 33 joints and the more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments in our feet.   There are 26 bones in the feet, over one-quarter of the entire bones in the body.

If you have foot pain, knee pain, hip pain, back pain, ask yourself?  Could my shoes be contributing? We often choose shoes with heels that are too high, shoes with arches, foams, air pockets.  The market always has a new and improved version of a sneaker or shoe for all activity and age.  People who wear a flat sneaker, flat shoe, or sandal often find improvement.  Flip Flops seem to work.   Moccasins, wonderful!  High heels, not so good.

Take care of your feet.  You only have one pair.  Consider your shoe choice.  Go barefoot when possible.  We cannot offer you the opportunity for that, but we can offer foot nourishment.

We have the miraculous neem salve for many foot issues.  Our argan neem foot cream is ideal maintenance, and our Dead Sea Salt Spa makes a wonderful foot soak, as does our Clay Neem. Our butters (Sheamu and Shargan) can improve the feet tremendously, soothing cracks, calluses and dryness.  Dance upon the earth. Love your feet.