Body Notes | Barefoot on My Birthday

Another Trip Around the Sun

Today is my birthday—another trip around the sun.

Birthdays have become less about getting older and more about pausing. They invite me to look back, notice where I am, and become curious about what wants to unfold next. We all hope for many journeys around the sun and many opportunities to learn about the wonders of this earth, though some people are given more and some fewer. None of us knows how many birthdays we will have, and perhaps that is what makes this day feel so precious.

On days like this, I don’t feel drawn toward shopping, partying, or rushing from one activity to the next. I want to go outside. I want to smell the air, listen to a creek, walk beside the ocean, and notice what is already there. Walking on sand or grass near water immediately refreshes me. It fills me with life and encourages me to become curious again about what is beneath my feet and all around me.

I especially love walking barefoot in wet grass, particularly in the morning. I love the coolness around my feet, the water between my toes, the softness of the ground, and the way each step feels different.

Moss is even more inviting. It is soft, damp, alive, and sometimes so thick that my feet sink into it. When I find a place like this, I take off my shoes. Not because I think I should, but because my body wants to feel it.

There is a lot written about grounding, or earthing, and the possible effects of direct contact with the earth. The research is still developing, and I don’t need to make a large claim about what is happening. What I know is much simpler: my feet wake up, my breathing changes, and I become aware of the weight of my body and the ground carrying me. I feel more present, more connected, and somehow more alive.

That experience doesn’t stay behind when I leave the moss.

It comes with me.

When I step onto the dance floor, I bring the softness of the moss into my feet, the uneven ground into my balance, the coolness into my breath, and the feeling of being supported into my movement. What began as a quiet moment in nature slowly transforms into something else. Sometimes it becomes a flowing step, sometimes a deeper relationship with gravity, and sometimes something I can’t explain at all.

That is one of the things I love most about movement. An experience doesn’t end when we walk away from it. The body remembers, carries it forward, allows it to unfold, and often reveals something entirely new.

Perhaps that is what I wish for this next journey around the sun: another year of curiosity, of discovering what life has to offer, of taking off my shoes when the earth invites me, and of allowing these experiences to become part of how I move through the world.

Today, I am grateful for wet grass, moss, fresh air, water, and a body that still wants to explore. They remind me that life isn’t waiting somewhere else. It is already here, beneath my feet.

I’d love to hear from you: How do you celebrate another trip around the sun? Is there a place, a ritual, or something you return to every year?

— Bettina-Kira

Dance the Breath to Your Soul