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.

Chill

I work in a bureaucracy. Everyone knows how tedious they can be, but let me tell you, if you've never been on the inside of one, you don't know the half of it. As the economic downturn filters out to my area, things are only getting worse. I could complain about the inane policies, the nonsensical decisions, the institutionalized biases, but that would merely be griping and not productive.

Suffice to say, I have found these things wrapped around me in a web that is difficult to disentangle. Coupled with other political issues...and I'm not referring to governmental politics, I mean the personal-level struggle for power that is a factor in every relationship we have...and I've got a recipe for sour attitude.

I don't like that atitude, who does? But more than that, it is actually a killer attitude. Some people are more resistant to that kind of stress, but I am not. I can feel it weaken me in very real ways.

So, I'm turning my attention to ways to disengage from the problem. I know some people think that is a bad way to deal with problems, but I don't mean sweep them under the rug and withdraw. I mean to take myself out of the equation, so I am not emotionally influenced by the stressors.

There are many ways to do this. Eliminating clutter is a big one. A clean, clear space helps settle the mind. This can be challenging in our accumulative culture, especially if one lives with packrats and droppers...or worst of all packrat droppers. You know, those people who not only keep everything, but drop it wherever they happen to be at the time. Wow, that just grates on already strained nerves! So a clearing is good, a clearing of desk, of office, of home, of yard, and through the process, the mind.

Second is to engage in some relieving activity. Something that absorbs the mind and body, that thrusts out the petty concerns for those weightier matters. I'm partial to things in the water, since water is a powerful element for me. Unfortunately, in Florida where you'd expect everything to be about water, there is surprisingly little of it that we can actually get into. Most of the water is swampy and unsafe for swimming, and what is good is increasingly blocked off or crowded out. This is perhaps one of the most privatized and fenced-off states in the nation...but that's another topic. Along with activity would be service as well because nothing gets one out of one's own head like doing good for others.

Third would be to cleanse the soul. Meditation, healthy eating, this may be time for a purifying fast to awaken those dulled spiritual senses and gain clarity. Don't forget about breathing. we rarely really breathe. Most of us go about our lives barely sucking in enough air to keep our bodies functioning.

I think I may take up Parkour. I've been fascinated by it from the beginning. It seems to suit me very well: It is physical and graceful, there are no competitions or shows (i.e. commercialism), it is very meditative, it is individual, free, lifelong, and takes very little equipment. It was actually developed as a way to bring the lithe fitness of primitive people to those of us who live in the more destructive worlds! Now may be the time to do it!