In holistic practice this is a basic concept, one now recognized in Western medicine too: if you want to grow a healthy plant that bears fruit, tend to its roots. In other words, if you want a human being to blossom, to have a thriving future, to know how to withstand life's trials, look to the solidity of their personal and family «roots», to their surroundings, and, more broadly, take care of the «soil» they come from.
The idea of the human being likened to the structure of a tree has ancient origins, and the symbolism that follows is easy to grasp. Picture a person with their feet firmly planted on the ground, mirroring the roots of a plant, able to anchor and ground itself in the soil, drawing energy and nourishment from deep below, as is the way of the plant kingdom.
Their trunk is well represented by the upright structure that acts as the load-bearing force, supporting the branches and the fronds turned toward the light as much as toward the storms. Picture the face turned toward the sky, hair fluttering in the wind, arms and hands raised, ready to bear fruit just like lush branches, covered in flowers, young shoots, and berries.
It is here, in the poetic, ancient image of the human-tree, or in the more familiar image of the «tree of life» that modern yoga iconography has made us so familiar with, that we can clearly see the alchemical joining of the lower, foundational energies (tied to the earth, to subsistence, and to the lower chakras with their basic needs) and the higher ones, of the sky, of the spirit, which carry creative influences and are the wellspring of human expression.
Well then, for life to develop and for a plant to bear fruit, its roots must be strong! The healthier the roots, the better the quality of life of the whole plant.
In other words, when a future parent wants to approach the subject of procreation, it is advisable that they work on themselves and on their own roots. We carry with us, after all, the emotional conflicts, the fears, the great uncertainties and difficulties tied to the «basic» elements of our family. Our very own parents are our «fundamental root», as are our relationships with our family of origin, with the land we come from, and with the wider web of relatives. Roots reach down into the soil and do not fail to reveal to us even the most material, «least poetic» aspects of the procreative process, such as the financial security that solid foundations can guarantee, and which, when lacking, gives that sense of insecurity that can sometimes lead people to put off becoming a mother or father, even for a long time, or to approach the whole process with apprehension and a feeling of being adrift. Our roots are also made up of «how» we were raised as children, and with how many, and which, certainties we ourselves grew up, now being saplings ready to bear fruit in turn. Simply becoming aware of the quality, the solidity, or the weakness of our own roots is already an important step toward moving forward on the path of parenthood and preparing ourselves to give ourselves, where needed, what we are missing.
In almost every holistic discipline there are practices, meditations, exercises, specific treatments, visualizations, aimed at strengthening our «roots» and, in particular, at reinvigorating those natural physical and energetic traits that allow us to connect with our innate capacity to reproduce, while also allowing us to draw on all the strength a parent needs to fulfill their role. In this process, the psychoanalytic approach is just as valid as the holistic one, based on listening to a person's underlying energies. Some disciplines, Reiki for example, aim to rebalance the frequencies of the lower chakras so that the energetic system can prepare for the experience of conception, removing any blockages that might stand in its way. Other techniques, such as Family and Systemic Constellations, seek to remove blocks inherited from long-standing conflicts between parents and children or, more broadly, among relatives. Still other techniques, such as Crystal Therapy, are used to strengthen one's grounding to the earth and one's fertility, stimulating the first and second chakras. Here too, there are many valid approaches toward a single goal: laying important foundations for the structure that is to come.