Run

Today I ran.  I run nearly every Friday.  Just me.  In the woods.  No shirt, low tech minimal shoes.  I don't run alone though.  God runs with me.  I can feel the Spirit Lord rush behind me, through me, over me.  Meet me at a bend, whisper to me, shout to me.  I follow his voice.  I run until he stops me.  Sometimes I run fast and hard. Sometimes I run slow.  Sometimes I pause.  Sometimes I am dropped on my butt in awe.

I don't just run.  I also climb, jump, balance, swing.  I am the animal I was made.  I am in tune with my ancestors.  I can feel their joy in me.  I interact with the real world.  Today I ran with deer.  Bounding around me along the trail.  I have argued with hogs.  I have followed raccoons.  I have petted armadillos.  I am becoming less a threat to them and more a part of their world.

I learn too.  Today, I vaulted the table again.  Twice.  I had been hampered by my own mind since falling hard several months ago.  I knew I could do it, but couldn't manage it.  Today I did it.  It was awkward, but successful.

I also ran up a new tree.  Four steps, nearly vertical, no hands.  I have tried many times.  This was the first.  I ran and ran.  I got two steps.  The next time I ran harder and got three steps.  But still not high enough.  Today, I got nearly there.  Then I decided to stop climbing and run the whole way.  The realization settled on me and I felt the flow engage as I focused hard on the first foot plant.  Then lifted my eyes to the end goal and I was soaring into it.  Beyond it actually.  It will only get easier from here.

It was the same with the side jumps.  Jump horizontally from one vertical surface to another.  I could manage one side and then slowly learned to land the other.  Now I can jump from one tree to another and continue forward motion.

This is the physical manifestation of my spiritual discipline.  In this practice, I am healed and made whole, even as my body aches.  Even the rips and tears in my skin, the bruises, the sore muscles are healing.  They are part of the warrior.  I am a man and need to feel physical pain to be wholly who I am made to be.  It confirms I exist and that I can survive.

I am this thing called man.  Half spiritual, half physical, ruler of the natural world, heir to the heavens.  When I run, all is merged into one whole and it is good.