General: The things we take for granted which act as the supportive background to our life and activities, such as parental love, our own reality as a person, social order, the thousands of things which constitute ‘reality’ for us; the basic ‘taken for granted’ aspects of one’s nature. For instance language and culture are such. They give us the very basis for our personal and unique personality, yet we stand upon them just as the earth supports us. Also: The ‘ground we stand on’; attitudes and relationships we have taken for granted; everyday life; the past. The ground, like earth, holds in it all past experience, summarised as it is in culture and language. Soft earth or fields: Mother; the fundamental processes of life out of which we have our being and which continually nurture us. Under the earth, or swallowed by the earth: The unconscious habits, drives and psychobiological processes which existed before our emergence as a conscious self, and in which we might lose self in death. Off The Ground: Losing connection with one’s roots of family or culture. This may also be occasionally shown as being on a high building. Idioms: Down to earth; go to earth; like nothing on earth. See also: Unconscious.
