The Advantages of going Barefoot when safe and useful

I saw that many people are reading the article on Earthing:

 from 2012:

• Earthing

 

 

It's true this is a more California and Florida and Hawaii kind of thing. However, I grew up mostly in Southern California relatively near to the Beaches. So, going barefoot on the beach sand and sometimes in desert sands (when there were no cactuses nearby like Chollas which are the worst). But, usually on beaches going barefoot can be the safest place to go barefoot plus it can feel really good on your feet (as long as the sands are not to hot and boiling or freezing. For example, I often still go barefoot even when the temperatures are in the 50s locally here on beaches near the San Francisco area. 

But, I notice many people never learned to go barefoot like the surfers I hung out with in high school and junior high in the 1960s in Southern California. But, once you get used to going barefoot it is a whole different way of living which often is better for your feet under most circumstances.

For example, when I studied with Tibetan Lamas in the 1980s especially in California, Oregon and Nepal and India often when they were doing a Puja or Intitiation they often (almost always) were barefoot in their robes during these Pujas and Initiations both in the U.S. and in Asian Nations like India and Nepal.

The idea seems to be a "Connection to the Earth". Beyond religion being connected to the earth is very very important to mental, emotional and physical and spiritual balance.

Without a good connection to the earth through your feet and a connection to the day and the sun through your eyes and skin often people get very strange and continue to be strange until they ground into the earth and the Sun and the sky and into Trees.

This I believe is one of the reasons so many many people die or go crazy in cities where there are not enough Trees or bare ground where it is safe to go barefoot.

So, if you are in the right kinds of places going barefoot sometimes can literally save your life by getting your perceptions and your world into a better balance with the earth which we all sprang from originally as human bodies.

I even met someone who climbed to the top of Mt. Shasta barefoot either in the late 1960s or early 1970s. However, this is more about people having toughened their feet enough to do something like this. And most of the time of year you wouldn't want to do this when there is snow above 8000 feet on the mountain or else you are going to get frostbite and lose toes or your feet entirely.

So, you have to be very practical about when it is useful to go barefoot and when it is not.

Also, because it is legal to drive barefoot in California I usually at least have my right foot barefoot for use on the brake pedal and gas pedal simply because I wear a size 15 shoe (17 in Crocs). So, going barefoot is actually safer than me driving with shoes.

Also, because of how many people died from getting their beachwalkers sandals caught in the gas peddle in their cars and other vehicles, driving barefoot has been legal in California for some time just as a matter of public safety.