"Touch grass" has lost all its charm. It was good, it was and still is rather effective, but it just doesn't hit quite the same anymore (at least for me).
Go outside and touch some dirt.
Run your fingers into the ground, feel the soil give in to the force you impose on it. Dig in deep enough so that your hand can be buried, returning to the earth of its origins, and so you can feel the grit of life get stuck between your nails. If that's too existential for you, or if you don't like getting dirt under your fingernails, then you don't have to root yourself entirely into the ground. Only partially.
Let the ground-dwelling insects and other bugs feel you in return. Permit them the honor to scale your hands like the wall or mountain they perceive you to be. Composure and grace towards the miniature architects, excavators, and recyclers of our planet is a mercy rarely extended to them. When have you ever purposefully allowed an ant to travel across your hand, not out of pure chance the creature had decided it was to travel that way but because you sat and allowed it to be?
Sift the particulate substrate between your fingers, let it fall from your palms back to the land it was shoveled from, gravity helping to sieve it between the wrinkles and cracks of your hands. Rub the dirt between your fingers, really feeling and appreciating the texture you can find. Rich soil, chalky dirt, actual sand, all of them have textures! Seek out the consistency identity of your neighborhood soil.
Hold a handful of soil up to your face, or perhaps a pinch depending on what you prefer, and breathe in all its life-scents. Imagine what the smells could possibly be trying to tell you. How old is it, you wonder. How many communities of species rely on or relied on this strip of land you're on right now? Is this the same earth trod on by people and animals of centuries prior, or was it carried over by the winds of time and the Home Depot Gardening Center? There are so many stories within the odor of the earth you live on, clues as to where you live and the health of your environment. All you need to discover them is be inquisitive.
Just. Try to taste it. If it is safe to. You might be surprised.
i've only eaten dirt once or twice...
My point in sharing all of this is to say "Touch grass" is overdone, especially when beneath the lush grass is the land that tends to go underappreciated. Unacknowledged in some cases.
Consider stepping outside for a moment and, while living in the moment, after smelling the roses and touching grass, touch some dirt too.
Tell someone else who needs it to not stop at grass. Tell them to go the extra mile (or the extra inches) and touch dirt.
If they really need it, tell them to go eat dirt. Maybe even muss them up a little bit with it, I don't know.
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