As the summer lights start to fade and the air turns crisp, a soft shift can be felt within and around us. The sun’s fire turns away to welcome earth’s quiet rhythm, inviting us to slow down, reflect, and tune into the changing season. With that in mind, Grounded hosted From Sun to Soil, a morning workshop designed to honour this transition and move together into autumn’s pace.
Our volunteers, some of which are new in the organization of activities, felt the need of having a moment for looking back into what summer brought, how to step into the next season and having a passage from a very lively and, oftentimes, demanding high energy season into a slower, more inward period. In a moment in life where everything seems to pass very fast and we sometimes struggle to find a moment of stillness, we wanted to create a space and mindful occasion where we can reconnect with ourselves through simple and mindful exercises. The activity unfolded starting with a small session of gentle movement, a moment to understand how we feel within our bodies and be able to respect and honor it throughout the activity. It was followed by an appreciation moment in our garden, where we got to explain how plants also prepare for the next season, ensuring their survival, reminding us that every living being needs to lean into inevitable changes and adaptation is the key. We invited everyone to step inward and inside with a small cacao sharing ritual experience, where we explored the importance of small daily actions that have the power to ground ourselves, empathising the importance of those moments lead with intention, aligning our subconscious mind with our goals and desires. The session finished with a guided writing exercise, giving everyone the chance to tune with their emotions, sustain themselves, but also letting go and integrating their experiences before entering a different period. As the morning went by and everyone was cocooning themselves in the comfort of releasing feelings and processing them, our community culminated the morning creating a spontaneous sharing moment, charged with raw emotions. While the experience is deeply personal, it is also shared. We believe that growth and change happen best when held by community, when others witness, support, and offer us space to just be. From Sun to Soil is meant to remind ourselves that as the world slows down, connection remains the soil in which we continue to grow.
