As you’re well aware by now, I’m usually late to the proverbial dance when it comes to trends. So, it’s with typical tardiness that I come to this winner: earthing.
In case you, too, are not yet up to speed, earthing promotes the idea that walking barefoot on the ground, sleeping on the ground, or sleeping on a pad in your home that’s electrically grounded (the rough equivalent of sleeping on a lightning rod) enable the body to replace electrons lost to living, aging, the magnetic dissonance of the Earth’s poles, and amnesia. (I once found my electrons in my coffee cup with my car keys. Thank God the cup was empty.) Needless to say, recovering these lost electrons is purported to cure all manner of ills.
No fringe craze worth its salt could stand a prayer of going mainstream without the obligatory institute. Here you go: The Earthing Institute (“reconnecting people to the planet”). And what’s more effective than a Danny Deep Diver for hooking the big ones? That’s right: retail. And for that we have Earthing.com, your one-stop online shop for everything from fitted sheets to body bands, from athletic recovery bags to the indispensable Earthing Yoga and Fitness Mat Kit (“get connected & feel vibrant”).
(Don’t look now, but I’m going to start the next wellness craze: Tarring. The idea is that, given the carbon-rich composition of our bodies, sleeping on asphalt [“get prone not alone”] — which is derived from oil derived from the fossilized remains of our carbon-based ancestors — connects us directly to our past. Given the increasingly pathological nature of our gullibility, connecting to our past is infinitely preferable to connecting to our future.)
On the off chance that you’re interested, all of this flimflammery is the terrestrial equivalent of digital marketing and web advertising; that is, it’s the selling of the unmeaning by the unscrupulous to the unwitting. En garde!
And here’s a simple way to evaluate the veracity of almost everything: If you come across a combination of letters in this precise order (case sensitive) — Wellness Mama — it’s bunk.
Space oddity, indeed.
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Photo by Hunter Desportes, via Wikimedia Commons.