Ups and Downs: Run with the Cycles of Your Life

Just as mysteriously the gods granted me that week of effortless running,  this week has been all hard work.  My body feels as if it's been twisted up like a twizzler, firing the nerves in all the hot spots,  and making good sleep elusive.   Nevertheless,  the weekend runs gave me plenty of open roads to stretch my heart,  stopping at this beautiful spot on the 35th Ave cut-down I pass regularly, just to absorb the beauty of those big trees.   And this week,  my very modest attempts give me good doses of sun and breezy air.  Whether I walk really fast (which is surely how it must look) or run really slow,  simply moving along will eventually loosen me up and give a rise to the endorphins which situate me for the rest of the day.

Perfectionist and performance oriented folks, as I tend to be,  have difficulty riding with the cycles of life.  Especially now,  with the planet undergoing the most tremendous transformation since Creation,  we are billions of cells in the human/earth body on the receiving end of solar winds, planetary tides,  galactic alignments of all kinds with heavenly forces and bodies we can only barely perceive with either 5 physical senses or any others at our disposal!  And yet,  with brave hearts,  we wake up each day to take up our respective tasks,  arrive at our jobs, take care of our children, our parents, our partners, ourselves....cook our food,  address our issues,  seek solace,  create dreams,  love each other....all while the wobble of existence causes dramatic shifts in our energy or paradigms at any given time.    Is it any wonder there are days when the going is like a magic carpet ride,  full of mysterious and effortless results,  and others when it seems as if the very air is thick like molasses,  holding us up in our hard casings of bodily or emotional distress?

I may have finally found that step back,  where I take a longer look at the Big Picture....and showing up every day at work is honoring the dharma of my mission, making myself available to the Powers that Be in whatever way I'm led,  to offer guidance, inspiration and model the desire to stay in the game.   Or running morphs into a Zen practice of simply moving,  and finding the pace of the day,  no matter what my expectations may demand.   Or creating means finding the elements of my household life like colors in my art box,  making the landscape of my home full of living;  the plants lush and colorful,  the rhythm of work, interactions,  sleep and dreams...the inner life of Soul, impressing itself upon me, and asking me always,  Where is your attention now?  SEE what is truly there!

It takes downtime to appreciate the nurturing of shadows,  silence,  contemplation and solitude.  We mask the benefits with our cultural 'guilt trips',  when instead we can roll with it,  as if we had any other choice,  into our shamanic investigation...and come back out with greater insight,  confidence and resilience!  Why are we so afraid of our own inner Self??  This Valentine's Day,   as the world 'sells' us a picture of romantic love,  remember there is no love possible unless it lives inside of us.  The wounded,  betrayed, childlike heart hiding behind our adult masks, is calling to us to embrace it,  nurture it back into the Soul family,  where your acceptance and integration will give it new life and meaning.   Take a step in the direction of your next cycle and embrace your ups and downs.   Love even the question in-between. 

Pushing Through the Big Griffin Loop

Compared to other places I've lived,  I think of my SoFlo area as an urban development.  You can visit great parks, and of course the beaches,  but running in any direction will get you miles of neighborhoods and pseudo-industrial enclaves...some beautiful,  some not so much.   For my Sunday long run,  I decided to head for my big Griffin loop,  which extends west and north to capture connecting streets full of lush mystery and trashy charms.  There were more runners out yesterday (Ft. Lauderdale race is soon!),  and more trash along the roads.   The cool-down felt great with the sun blazing through clear skies....I got warm quickly and loosened up after my first few miles.

It was fun comparing notes with cousin Steve,  who also runs.  An injury side-lined him some years back,  but he was showing off his new Mizunos,  so I was happy to hear he was back.  Some of the runners I saw on my loop were younger, faster and more relaxed looking than me.  But as I tackled first one section,  then another,  I had to allow myself some pride;  I've been running now almost 10 years and "come hell or high water" have managed to STAY running all that time, minus a few days or so here and there.  So it hasn't exactly gone as 'planned':  I am not the 'uber-runner' of my fantasies.  My body,  built for anything but speed, seems to take running as a really long, fast walk!  With occasional spurts of greatness,  meaning I can actually get a good gait going,  I have morphed 'training' into a comfortable familiarity with all my loops and routes....knowing just how much will get me awake,  or stretch my limits and my legs.  And no races since Miami '12.

Hanging with Steve reminds me that every runner has their own 'Inner Runner'...flavored by personality, ambition,  competitiveness and drive.  I had much more ambition in the beginning.  Now I have drive, enough to convince me 3-5 days a week that it's worth my while to get out there again.   I was goal-oriented;  training for events.  These days,  I am most interested in how it feels and what I see along the way.   As above,  this shot of a canal overpass on 29th,  a semi-industrial park connector between Stirling and home.   Enchanting spot!

Some times I push through and like yesterday,  find it worthwhile.  Other times I choose my couch, my notebooks, my floor,  my yoga routine....or dive into my kitchen and play with good foods to feed my hopes and dreams.   As I watched a young gal running ahead of me yesterday I thought "great job,  young one,  now let's see you keep it up another 30 years!"
Age is a good thing.  Now I know when I can,  when I shouldn't,  and when none of that matters!

Running the Human Race

Are you sensing changes you can't quite put your finger on?  Do old issues marked 'resolved' recycle back into awareness or new insights emerge from out of 'nowhere'?  Is your body revealing new symptoms- and remedies- for whatever ails you?  Can you push your limits into limitless potential with an unexpected ease?  Welcome to The Shift.

In South Florida,  winter is race season:  our mild temps allow runners from all over to enjoy balmy (and sometimes too warm) conditions,  and Sunday's Miami marathon was no different.  Last year, running the half,  I fought fatigue and inclement conditions just to participate in the 10th anniversary of the race.  This year,  I did not enter, but decided to 'run my own race' in homage.

Scheduling gave me an opening to run Saturday morning, which turned out to be a longer 8+ miler,  determined to take full advantage of the beautiful weather and stay out on the roads.  Cruising through the quiet back streets, it felt at times like I'd  found my 'cats paws',  that lightness in gait great runners boast about;  a rhythm that gives a lift to every footfall and feels as if I am skimming the earth, buoyant and synced between molecules inside my body as they resonate with those outside...

If I do a long Beach Run I am running a half-marathon more or less;  so Sunday I headed east into the clear morning to be in solidarity with Miami.  Nodding to the other runners,  making way for the bikers, walkers,  catching the sun on my shoulders,  on the ocean,  reflecting off my eyes....

...and again, finding those cats paws and the lightness embedded in the rhythm of what feels like the endless rotation of my steps,  ditching the main drag for back alleys, side streets,  watching the sleepy neighborhoods come awake.  Finding Beauty around every corner....

I don't miss the crush of traffic, crowds in the starting lines,  or pressure to succeed.  I have had to change my relationship to running to encompass other factors,  and I'm proud to say I am consistent- and healthy!- even if the 'uber-runner' in my head has not yet materialized.  YET. 

We are all running the Human Race.  We strive to 'keep up' with the crowd,  jockeying for position,  scoping out our way forward,  trying to handle the aches, pains and fatigue that comes with staying on our feet.   Many of us succumb to problems along the way, sidelined by injury, accident,  exhaustion, so many circumstances beyond our control.   Sometimes, we lose heart,  or purpose.  We wander off course into side trails which become brambles or rock-walls,  or stumble into beautiful gardens where we distract ourselves, hidden from view.  We become lazy.  Why do we run to begin with?  Whats the point?  All that effort just to get...where?   Soon we have talked ourselves out of our own lives.

It is human nature to find ourselves deep in the labyrinth of the psyche.  Good intentions get lost in the process of our own 'entrainment',  where we forget the purpose of the journey to begin with, while a part of us more wise and resilient aligns itself within,  and works to heal the cuts, bruises and other wounds we acquire along the way.   The Path is never lost, no matter how far we (seem to) wander from it.  

Every time I felt tired yesterday,   I had years of running to rely on now,  to tap my inner reserves.  With clients and work I notice the same thing:  the body of knowledge in me is 'available',  and the clarity I need to bring awareness to light feels ready at my call.   As we run our human race,  we gain the precious experience which serves us with each new mile marker, benchmark,  achievement and challenge.   We house talents and abilities we barely recognize, and these are coming in for us now- see for yourself how your Wise Mind answers when you need that push,  the inspiration to show you the way.

And keep it moving.....!

 

Settling into The Shift

There is so much different about these days, and yet I keep having this 'deja vu' all over again feeling too....pulling words into my experience seems, for once,  to be a 'forced' exercise.  Impressions, emotions and my general sense of my Self in the World feels set apart from my usual facility with the left brain, and leaves me with a curious Void of making it all palpable for my left brain mind.

Somewhere over my last 4 day break for the holiday weekend,  I saw an interview on Stroke of Insight   author Dr. Jill Taylor.  She beautifully expressed this feeling of 'knowing' herself and the world deeply while the stroke she had in her left hemisphere deleted her ability to make words and communicate with others in her usual way.   After my mother had her stroke,  I remember how difficult it was to connect with her except to sit, touch, look at each other;  words did not always work, and she developed a block about speaking after a while....When I am a apart from people I do not speak much either.  And the chatter in my head is easier to spot as so much effluence from my emotional mind.  Before long,  I can find myself comfortably reaching 'test pattern'....or that release from 'making sense' of it all, from left brain labels of all kinds.

I ran the last 2 of my 4 days,  giving myself the first few days to just recover, as once again I work with the pain and blocks in my right hip etc.  Both runs put me in right brain experience so immediately:  time loses it's boundaries, and most often now I can't tell how long I've been out- sometimes, like yesterday,  my out and back felt endless as I took the stretch down Park, practicing how to keep my gait even when tired.

While MLK and BHO joined in real time to keep moving the world a little closer to our shared awakening,  I drew the mandala (above).   We are incubating in this first step off the platform of 12-21,  and drawing together our forces and energies for whatever lies ahead.  When I head down the road,  I realize there are still and always choices;  do I see myself gaining strength, endurance, ready to reach for those long distances again,  or do I morph into a 'walker' (no disrespect),  an old lady with 'disabled' limits....?  As I draw,  I move through the space on the paper in a similar way.  Choices are constantly being made as I choose form, line and color;   what emerges is a truer window into my inner state than any explanation I might offer. 

In the end I am still in love with clouds,  as they match my desire to feel the essence of things without naming them.  

If we all lifted ourselves from our Planetary vantage point long enough to feel what the Big Picture might be all about,  imagine how naturally all the constructs of Mind would just fall away.....is it our fear of wondering "who am I then"? which keeps us married to our identities?  We have so many ways of finding our Selves;  we have art-making and poetry,  music and sound.  We have the ancient chants of our ancestors and Visions given in the night.   Most of all we have Mother Nature who freely offers Her Self at any time:  from our ever-changing landscape, weather and temperatures to the infinite array of her Life forms, including us!-  if we 'see' Her,  we become Her.   For we ARE Her, as She becomes Her own True Self.   Whatever that may be, and however you experience it,  have faith it is one more step on your long road Home. 

What would Dean do? Fabulous Long Run back on the Big Griffin loop

I have my favorite runners....the marathoners,  the women,  the crazy ultra folks.   Some years ago when I first read Dean Karnazes's book Ultramarathon Man I was still relatively new to running, and hugely inspired by all the running talent out there.  Dean's book held key themes for me:  running as a response to life challenges (in his case the death of his sister),  finding the passion of running long, and the changes which manifest as a result.
Dean has a talent for creative running enterprises;  last year it was his "50/50"...running 50 daily consecutive marathons in all 50 states.   Yesterday, at his guest appearance at Runner's Depot he announced his next one:  a year to run a marathon in all 204 countries of the world!

Shout out to running pal Jim who passed along the info that Dean was coming into town....
I was at the store way early, and after chatting it up with Dennis (great sales-guy) and of course buying shoes, I was standing right there when Dean walks in the door!  Dennis and I look at each other "he's smaller than I thought" he says.  There is a buzz of energy around him- it is the vibrancy of his smile, his ultra-health and vitality...I find myself walking right up to him and saying "I am a huge fan" while he gives me a cozy hug and the pix above gets made on the spot!  He was led to his spot in the store to give his talk, and the running folks who gathered were, like me, a little star struck....he took questions,  he encouraged...his advice was very simple:  it just takes a lot of dedication and of course attention to diet and good cross-training (check, check and check).   I asked him what made him different (come on, Dean you know you are....) and again a simple (though frustrating answer for the rest of us!):  great biomechanics, and an unusual ability to take up lactic acid, making normal running fatigue virtually unknown for him.  Dean just goes...and goes...and goes. 

...As those legs show.  When the Dalai Lama is asked about his own unique spiritual qualities he always says "I am not special, I am just a humble monk."  Dean had a similar vibe:  we're all runners here,  we all love to run.  Through happy circumstance he finds himself able to model a master's level 'practice' which leads him to inspire many many of us (including Bill Clinton he said!) to get up off their asses.  The real gurus are 'direct representatives'...they don't need to be the rock stars,  what they do speaks for itself.

So today, despite relative sleeplessness and doubts about pulling out a long run,  I took those new Brooks Ghosts and an extra plastic pouch for the scuttling cloud cover, and headed out into a windy morning.   The lack of direct sun gave a chill to the skin until my first few miles were behind me,  the Ghosts giving that beautiful feel of hugging and supporting my feet as I made my way down Ravenswood heading for my first Publix pit-stop.   Usually by this point I begin to 'feel it'...as unlike Dean (and many other runners) my biomechanics suck and my 'burn' begins pretty much after putting my shoes on!  I tuned into the subtle conversation going on in my head sounding something like "yea you're tired,  just do the regular loop,  take a walk break,  don't push it..." and its opposite position: "wow these shoes really do feel great,  I feel pretty good too- why not get back on the BIG Griffin loop today?"  As they went back and forth,  I could almost feel the draw of backing down....I've been ratcheting running down for a few years now, despite my base.  Lowering my expectations seems par with an aging body which requires a bit more 'maintenance' these days.  

"What would Dean do?" I found myself asking...after all, I'm doing alright,  let's get up to Publix and go from there.   As I came out of the bathroom, the store filled with bike triathletes....swarms of helmeted roadsters seeking replenishment...outside more of them stacking their beautiful road bikes as they milled around taking their break.   This Tri club rides out every Sunday- I just 'happened' to be there as they stopped today....giving me a chance to chat up a few riders about bikes, cross-training (searching for a bike:  any suggestions, please comment!!!!).  "How many miles you doing?" a guy asks.   "Oh,  about 10 or 12" I say which is the BIG loop.   And as I head out I feel Dean nodding "that's it, girl, you go for it."

As I passed the usual cut-down at 35th I smile to myself.  I cruise on down to 40th feeling tired,  and take the stretch down to Stirling,  skirting a loose dog,  taking the number of a house for sale (wanted:  property with mother-in-laws quarters or similar....),  rounding out on Emerald Hills with a second wind.   The feel of that wind on my skin had a sensual quality;  intermittent sun kept the chill down and gave me buffers of resistance along with stretches of magical support.  I pushed,  I ran.   I would scan my body and ask it,  what can we do to straighten up,  lighten up the gait,  make it easier?  And it would respond with a resettling of limbs,  the rhythm falling into place for another block,  round the corner,  down past the park to home.

This is what I look like after those miles....alive and well.   Dean and the other runners are doing Vista View ultra today....and I know they're having a blast.   In solidarity with them, and all runners everywhere,  I did my part too.  Dean would be proud;  I know I am.  Run long, everyone,  run long!

Griffin loop and other runs in the New Year

Dream-life is the norm for me:  in my mind,  all images are great Stand-Ins for Experience.   And at times, I've had trouble navigating the limitations of the left-brain world.   No doubt this is partly why I felt compelled to 'master the marketplace' all those years ago, and provide enough economic structure to my life to lower the stress from artistic poverty.   Running came late in the game (now almost 10 years ago...wow) and added the regulation of training.  And whether I used to prepare for big races or just work at keeping a decent base, as I am now,  I am grateful for the fundamental shift in my life which brought me a platform to develop my skills as a therapist in all my various means of connecting with others.

Yesterday I cruised back up on the Griffin loop via Ravenswood,  and some of my favorite local stretches of long, quiet streets without time constraints....and today a quick out and back just to mobilize the stiffness from yesterday.   I wake from dreams which seem just transparent enough to layer over the morning,  but not enough to give me access;  frustrating flirtations from the higher realms- I keep telling myself when 'they' need me to know,  I will know.

I am struck by the disorientation I feel by the shift of the year, age, millennium....the metaphor that Life can be wants to take me off into layers of meaning and implication which confound my usual understandings.  What seemed immovable now moves....and what appears now as the opening of doors,  light at the end of tunnels is a revealing.  After all,  where did I go?   No where really.  "I" am still here.  But the Me who travels all those unconscious roads has seemingly met up with physical me.  As I run down these roads we merge into our expanded Self,  seeped into skies, trees, sunlight...the pat-pat of my footfalls,  the flight of birds....

The bridge which takes us from Old to New is deceptively humble:  it is a simple few steps,  a mere nod of a distance.  It will not take marathons to begin healing anymore.  We are in this together,  my high heart and I,  my feet,  my hands which yearn to create big again...
eyes which long to see the lover looking back with understanding....while we hover in the very beginnings of things,  take the opportunity to absorb all that Mother Gaia has to offer in the many-layered manifestation of Her love,  and stay on your feet.  The gait will get into rhythm by and by if you just keep moving along.

Running into My Own Zero Point: New Year's run

It took miles of roads,  beaches and trails, buckets of favorite little secluded spots, lots of lazy evenings, endless lists of chores, cleansing the crap....watching as the detritus of 2012 gave way through the Tsunami of change and cleared the way for a Void which gave birth to some kind of starting point at last....a place of sad surprises and tentative introductions to whoever I am, a part from 'the job'.... it took 11 days to disappear myself.  And like everything else in 2012,  unmet expectations dog me.  My missing S.O., remembrance of Mom... all the pointless, endless speculations of 'how' and 'why'....melting into deep detachment, my 'so what'? to dissociate from disappointments of all kinds.

Zero Point is not a happy place.  And yet it's not that old crutch Depression either.  I am not fighting the tears, and feeling all the pain of separation is a celebration on the flip-side to finally OPEN the way -  I move forward...onward....upward.

It was easy to wake up this morning and slip into the sleeping streets for a New Year's run, busting through the haze of staying up late through (amazing, impressive) neighborhood fireworks,  CNN banter, and the cold absence of my lover, my 'friend'... sliding off an 'us' into the bittersweet anniversary moment where Mom took one last look at me 2 years ago at Holy Cross and herself slid off the face of Life before I even realized it....taking the reason for me being here,  just as he now takes that reason as well-  until the full flower of my Own Life becomes visible....

I felt stiff and tired the first few miles and realized, without my supermarket pit-stops, that today's loop would need to be continuous....when you are a slow runner like me,  setting up a steady gait is the conduit for everything happening in my head, as I found that pace between fatigue and sturdiness which kept me on a beat, to the music, until arms, shoes, hips, feet felt just right as I 'lifted' into the movement and the immense Freedom unfurled like a flag I held tightly to my heart....filled with a love for this loop, on this run, THIS wide morning with its 365 secrets beckoning down the road....

I can't take any more head beating.  The heart will go where it will...As you lifted me this morning I pray,  Beneficent Ones, to Lift us ALL in one Breath of Love,  like a whisper on the wind,  which confirms....everything I feel and everything I AM.