Gaining- and Losing Ground: Sunday Long Run

Like a child with eyes bigger than their stomach when looking at a feast,  I woke to such a gorgeous morning Sunday,  that all thoughts of caution flew out of my head.  Instead, I felt a rush of excitement about just being out in the morning, and with a "why not?!" decided to tackle one of my favorite loops,  the long way to the beach via Dania. 

Back in my serious training days,  this 13-ish mile loop was my training benchmark for half-marathon racing.  I've done it many times.  It includes several magical stretches such as the cut between Sheridan and Stirling where the little blue crabs scuttle into their burrows along a waterway,  or the broad expanse of Dania Beach boulevard which brings the beach horizon ever closer,  or the tunnel of green on Surf Rd,  the connector between Dania and North Park beaches,  where all the other runners and bikers cruise up and down, skirting the wild cats, the dogs on leashes, the occasional cars looking for parking.

Over-confident,  and sunk into my early out-of-bed fog,  I felt myself on auto-pilot for the easterly stretch before taking the cut up to Dania,  and across to the beach.  Where I would normally just slow it down nice and easy I found myself needing to walk,  as I came into the Dania parking lot and picked up the path along the shoreline. 

 

Enjoying the welcome distraction of beautiful La Mer as She opened Her arms to welcome me (and catch a few photos),  I hobbled my way down Surf road and into North Park and thought;  "Whew! I'm done! But I need to get home now....yikes!"  And realizing that the umph I might have for a loop this long in the old days was nowhere to be found.

As I lifted my spirits and body from idle, I filled my water bottles and began my way west, up the overpass, admiring the crystalline light making everything seem etched in light,  and walked.  And walked.  For a block or so I put a little hop to it which created a slow (very slow) run,  but soon the heat of the day took it all out of me and I walked some more.   It took what seemed like an amazingly long time to walk the stretches between West Lake to Federal,  Dixie to 95,  before finally climbing the last overpass home.  Everything was aching;  my hips, legs, feet,  pain in my shoulders,  my back....my body wanted to break down and I kept walking like the proverbial zombie....one foot in front of the other.

For a turtle like me,  marathons are like this from about 15-18 miles on.   Sheer willpower and gut gets me through the torture my body experiences in those last miles.   The fact that I have done- and somehow survived - those experiences has always shown me that the body is more resilient than we know.   So somewhere in the midst of my meltdown I reminded myself this distance has not been on the menu for some time.  Clearly I am not used to this kind of push.   Time to rethink my efforts and ramp it back down.

Many of my running buddies, yes that's you Crash,  and you Marlon,  are finding new plateaus and benchmarks!  At the London marathon this year,  the fastest time ever was recorded!   I gained much ground in the old days when training seemed like my singular focus in life.  But now,  it feels I have lost some ground,  and training this body requires increasing vigilance to what I do and how.  

We have a bad tendency to tunnel vision;  whatever state we find ourselves in seems as if it 'should' last forever.   So perceived set-backs are like sentences of doom.  "I'll never run long again" was coursing through my head, -until I put a halt to it and realized "Maybe I can't run long NOW,  or TODAY,  but time will give me another chance to make it long again, if I just stay smart- and consistent...."etc.  

There are many ways I'm looking at where I apply my re-framing to things.  How I choose to turn the dial on my thoughts and focus on which perceptions has lowered my stress- and maybe my expectations.   But the road remains.   Whether I capture all of it,  or some of it,  the enticing beauty of Mother Nature is the constant in my running life.  I run to embrace Her.  And even if sometimes it feels She tricks me with a harsh reality, like the smothering edge of heat or rainstorms,  this does nothing to dampen the magnificence of Her landscape.  

The Nature of our selves is like this....in the weather of our emotions,  there are sometimes harsh environments for our heart.   It feels at times as if our dreams are losing ground,  and the aches and pains of endurance is too much.   But the gains of our experiences truly never leave us, no matter what has changed in the outer world.  Gain the ground lost by feeling the invincibility of your Spirit.   Whether you captured the goal you wanted or fell short,  there are many ways to "get there."   Let the road speak to you, and reach beyond the pain to the beauty calling you from every side.   It emanates straight from you!

Casting our Nets

Passing the Equinox,  south Florida has slowly released its grip on steamy summer and rain.  In the mornings,  the faint brush of cooler air rises from it's night blanket on the ground, teasing the rising sun,  ready to cast it's bright hot light into the day.  Every runner out there knows perfect temps/conditions are a rare and wonderful boon.  So I ran Saturday morning before clients,  a nice western loop,  and Sunday, geared up for a rendezvous with La Mer at the beach.

I haven't tackled big distance in a long time.  However,  keeping my base and yoga routine has kept me consistent.  Running to the beach is challenge enough: enough distance,  enough effort to push myself short of exhaustion.  As I headed out into the brightening day, I was still lost in the fog of sleep.  It always takes me a while to get my head back to 'reality'- and why my work schedule is so beneficial for me:  having mornings to take care of my body and my business allows me a strong transition, and time for myself. 

Traffic was still light, and the tunes were going in my head.  I floated through the first few benchmarks;  the crossings at Dixie and Federal,  and cruised right through the last hump of overpasses and into the beach. 

As usual,  rewarded by a soft ocean breeze lifting off the sands, while the water gently reflected a sky full of sunlight and soft, white clouds bobbing off an azure horizon.

As the bladers, bikers, runners and walkers dodged each other down the Broadwalk,  I took in the scene from a few different vantage points while taking my pit-stop break,  filling my water bottles,  and reminding myself that access to a beach run, just miles from my own home, is just about as great as it gets!!!  And knowing that I can return home, on my own 2 feet,  made me feel strong and fit. 

Farewell and thanks were said to the spirits which welcome me each time I 'notice',  photograph, appreciate 'them', and the awe-inspiring manifestation of beach life.  And so I turn to head back west.   As I begin my climb up the first overpasses,  I spied a group of Latino folks fishing off the pier.  I rounded out the top of my second climb as I watched one young guy carefully fold then toss his net which billowed up into a perfect square and fell in a quiet whoosh into the water.  Spirit gives us "triggers points";  moments in time that seem to rise up off the canvas of our usual lives and get our attention.   I watched that young man with his net and felt the image of its gentle unfurling zing into my brain.  He doesn't know for sure what's under the surface.  He may have spied the currents, and schools of whatever type of fish he's after-  but everything in water is on the move.   His graceful movement told me this is a practiced effort.  So whatever he caught, long after I passed him,  it seemed he was assured that something would land in that net. 

We are all casting our small, square nets into a vast body of water.  We are being called to practice our skills in bringing up the issues, emotions, changes and aspects of Self which coalesce somewhere close, to be captured in the net of our attention.  Putting ourselves into The Flow of experience,  we allow ourselves to TRUST:  that the waters harbor what lies hidden from view,  that we have the resources to find what we need regardless,  that together with all the elements of Living Life we will bring these to the surface, to feast on and integrate new material, value our accomplishments, and ready ourselves for a new day. 

I bench-marked my way back (a technique for running any long distance- or solving any big problem- break it up into parts), and with the sun at my back,  managed to keep my (turtle's) pace until I finally broke into a walk for the last bits home.  I have cast some formidable nets in my life, and many of them were cumbersome and unruly- or the waters were stormy and full of debris- or the weather in general just so bad I could hardly keep to my feet at all.  Now, as I watched that man cast his net I felt a resonance.  Over the years I have learned to hone my skill.   The water, the weather and my own expectations seem mysteriously in sync.  I cast what feels like the right size or shape, and as it unfurls into the air, for a brief moment it almost looks like a flag, semi-permeable, liable to change, dropping down into the depths of myself searching- and finding for what informs me now, and what will shape my dreams later.

Practice the skills which will allow you to cast your nets into the depths of your dreams.   The results may surprise you;  or maybe you knew all along-  this is my good future....I will fish for the freedom this bounty brings. 

Fall Equinox 2013: Let it Burn

After the frenzy of BARC's 40th anniversary event on Friday, and back to private practice on Saturday, I woke up Sunday ready for a long run to get my head into the Equinox spirit.
This benchmark, like so many others this year,  is full of meaningful layers, not the least of which is the 9 month mark from 12-21-12.  In all these months we have gestated ourselves,  to what are we giving birth??  Great Mother conspired to get me over to Tree Tops with Celeste....just so I could open an altar and ask exactly that.  But first....

Headed out into what serves as fall in south Florida- a warm rising sun and the coolish air rising from the earth met with me in the middle as I took the overpass and headed up 29th.  The dream themes of constant renovations swirled around in my head with the images of hope, change and expecting the unexpected.  Without too much trouble I rounded out onto Ravenswood and enjoyed that lovely straight stretch tucked along a nearly empty road, feeling my body relax into the rhythm.  Regardless of any form of anticipation about the day,  the run gives me that structured regularity that grounds me to Mother Earth even as it frees my concerns from their cages of the every-day.  Cruising down 35th,  meandering through Emerald Hills, it was a glorious morning spent with Nature.

I sorted through and packed my altar gear, meeting up with Cel at Tree Tops.  We navigated through our initial 'process' of figuring out where to go by leading with our gut instinct after all,  finding the Perfect Place along a bridle path, just off a hiking trail.  As the prep and opening commenced, and the smoke from the sage began to rise,  it swirled on puffs of wind and danced around us.  I 'saw' a building burning, as red as fire can be....and myself standing a ways back while the 'message' sounded:  'the building must burn, let it;  don't feel you need to run in to save it- the New needs to be built on the ashes of the Old.'

We placed many personal and planetary things into that fire bowl.  Things to let go.  Things to call in.  On this balance point, this birthing point for something beyond our scope of comprehension,  trust is asked of us as we watch our belief systems,  our governing and world systems, even our interpersonal constructs take to the flames of transformation.  I sat in the wafting of that sweet smoke and felt myself come Full Circle,  as we 'sat' with Mello and Vitae,  the rest of the Sun Temple brothers and sisters and all those others who were doing their ceremonies and conducting their own sacred circles everywhere around the world.  I felt a sense of peace about my own path and asked Great Mother to continue to let me serve Her, give Her voice, bring Her Presence into these times. 

We are too consumed with the negative imagery of destruction.  We forget this is just one facet of Her face.   The Old must go to make room for what we all are bringing in to this world.  Don't hang on to it.  Honor the lessons learned.  Now, it is time to stand back,  let it all burn....and - rebuild our New World.

Beyond Dark and Light

In all medicine/indigenous cultures, there is a recognition of the experience of 'dying to the self' in order to move forward, or be 'reborn' into a new life.  Only in the neurotic west, and only because Freud 'won' the psychiatric worldview over Jung,  do we equate 'dark' with 'bad', even evil.  Jung's voice of integration,  taken as it was right off the ancient world's page, joined the other, underground impulses, where the broader spiritual worldview of 'many parts' as One,  was embraced. 

The East is closer to a sense of harmony between Forces,  and under even that is the millennium of Knowledge, when Mother Earth as Mystery School was a designated assignment - to uplift, to educate, to redeem.  No matter what 'side' you were on,  what gender(s),  what script to run, lessons to learn, what comrades and loved ones to work with, what geopolitical stressors to bear....no matter what,  every one comes with every aspect of life bundled into seed packets.... with our potential to grow.

Growth is not dark or light.  Growth is the constant in this process we call Life.  Whether my growth looks good to you,  or not,  my growth is a product of the complex interaction of many many aspects of things,  with much of it is now happening in our global devolution, and our corner of the universal neighborhood.  I have had to wrap my head around what the internet community is circulating about cosmic events of all kinds.  Meanwhile our own geopolitical stakes raise ridiculously higher all the time.  In my time off work,  I felt myself falling under the pressure of so much which seems imminent....just as all Big Change feels...like the birth of a baby,  its the last bits that are indeed the hardest.

I always liked the term 'shamanic descent'.  Just as the medicine people know how to create and conjoin in major initiations, which prompt and feed the psyche with liminal material and build the bridge to the 'new life',  my little vision quest is giving me the incredibly rare space and time to empty myself out- in order to fill myself up.  Depression is an emptying out;  or rather the recognition and fear of emptying.  Week 1 of staycay was an emptying.....

it was emotional tsunamis and lost dreams...it was a curving in on myself seeking solace and safety within The Mother's womb.  And then it was loving that part.   The part that hurts, that hides.  We judge a lot of things that deserve our scrutiny.  But too much we judge the lost and hurt parts of ourselves.  We enforce the PC of the spiritual world; we forget that we play all the parts,  we seek these experiences,  we need to understand.

Once I let someone listen,  it all began to make sense again.  The 'sisterhood' of remembering brought me back to all the good things in my life, not the least of which is the long friendship that gave me that lifeline.

 The pressure finally began to ease a bit, and my excursions into running, or finding good farmer's markets or breathing into the space of simple rest has been fortuitous, timed to the High Holy days on the Jewish calendar.  So many of us are breathing peace back into the picture...., the wars and rumors of wars feel unhinged again from their timeline.... Like those last few pushes,  we work with all our might to bring our Good future into the world.  And very often that Work is so deep within,  it takes an intrepid soul to find the precious light, to find the courage, the stamina...to find the insight, to find the way through.

Beautiful Beach: Sunday long run 8-25-13

"Running has thrown me into adventures that I would otherwise have missed"

-Benjamin Cheever

Persistent tropical moisture swirls around the Gulf and Caribbean basins.  South Florida sports a lush, green landscape- in comparison,  many times by August we are hot and withered.  This year, we are hot and wet, wet, wet.

Running has become an adventure of seeing if I can make it out and back before any rain interferes.... while yesterday,  as I headed out for a Sunday long run,  a strange chill was in the air.  This was all the reason I needed to point east.  The Sundays of big Griffin loops and more or less consistency with my base gave me some confidence that beach and back would be fine, especially with a surprise weather gift:  cloudy, breezy- perfect.

I've read somewhere that radiation from Fukashima mixes with the wild electro-magnetic energy, producing vivid anomalies (like lightening out of nowhere) and more than usually beautiful colors and skies.  This I can believe.  When you live where it's flat,  the sky is a canvas of unusual presence.  And lately it seems as if all Mother Nature's artistry is apparent especially morning and dusk,  when the sun transforms the heavens with luminosity, and colors the cloud formations with quiet grandeur.  It was worth every step to make it to North Park, tired as I felt, and somewhat disconnected from my body.  The pace of work, of change, or staying centered while so much chaos floats around me takes its toll.  As usually happens,  it takes at least a few miles, and in this case, pretty much the whole way to the beach,  before I felt truly empowered into my body.  This, in and of itself, is a tremendous boon about running.   For people like me who tend to 'live in their heads',  it takes an effort to ground.   By the time I trained my camera on La Mer,  spread upon the sands in the diffusion of morning light,  I felt at peace,  welcomed into the day.

As I turned back and headed west over the intercoastal,  I could feel my feet want to give way to quiet walking....but determined to make this a true 'training run',  I talked them into keeping up a running pace even if my run looks so much like fast walking these days....
as I kept on past US 1 and each intersection,  I felt a confidence in my pace that overcame the discomfort or fatigue....somewhere I felt a release into mild dissociation,  the 'trance' state that comes once the body settles into itself, and the mind is empty and free.  I was grateful for the pause.  Too often thinking only reinforces out-moded beliefs, raw emotions with no cause,  preoccupations with neuroses...none of which I need or wanted....and my feet gave me the freedom to simply feel "myself."

There will be much bombarding us with news of wars and rumors of war.  Environmental and human degradations and extinction protocols.  Threats from the sun,  climate changes, and each other.   The insanity of our own irrational greed.   It's good to know that we can go within,  however that works for you,  to find Our True Self.   No one has to tell you what that is or how to get there.  Once you feel it,  you will 'know'  what and who you really are,  a part from the crazy projections of the world.   Find your way in.   And become familiar with the space at the center of your life unencumbered and free.  Move within it, sing to it,  listen for it's message of love and acceptance.  It calls you,  misses you.  It belongs to you.  

Easy Does It, for Now

When running in summer heat,   I am always looking for patches of shade thrown by the trees along the streets,  or chances to slip into any number of small parks flung across the neighborhoods where a rest-stop beckons. 

These mimosa and oak trees standing strong in Emerald Hills.....

and this very tall palm catching my eye against a bright sky,  as I walked the last bits home on yesterday's Griffin loop long run.

Barely keeping a base going,  maybe 20-25 miles a week, roughly,  I am coping with my body's decreased temperature regulation against a solid wall of humidity and heat which has gripped us all summer long...and keeps me feeling like a beginner again just trying to get any kind of gait going, any mileage being good mileage,  just to move at all my humble goal.

I feel a pause in everything:  while transition continues in global circumstances, and the earth Herself regroups through the barrage of celestial changes,  I seem poised on the brink of things completely unseen and unknown.  Packing,  for what?  Where?  My 'vision'  seems blocked and unable to move into a forward timeline.  Meanwhile,  all I really want to do is take it easy,  gaze lovingly at the Natural world around me, and fill myself with the bountiful artistry that is Gaia.

The 'to do' list isn't going anywhere.   And neither are my endless speculations about what's going on and what it all might mean for any of us.  But I catch myself, sometimes,  laughing at all the drama,  once I immerse myself in the life of living things.  Each flower lifts itself like a gift into my eye-line.   Each petal asks for it's place in the Sun.   I would rather spend my time in my own natural self, aligned with this endless vibrancy.   Running gives me this. 

Run, Rest, Rejunevate: Repeat

I've been revisiting many aspects of my life as I continue the packing project;  this piece shown here is a silkscreen from my early 20's circa Bennington, VT, after I met Jay,  who became a springboard for all things New Age.  I was still making art, trying to express what I was learning.  Amazing how well this piece captures an ascension/meditation process, in 7 parts....and how well I remember my intent, hopes and dreams,...which mostly remain....as my core intent- hopes and dreams!!

Lately it feels as if things are running on parallel paths.  By day drawing upon my knowledge and experience to provide the support for those who are marginally making the transition from utter catastrophes to some semblance of stabilization,  or navigating the deep anxieties such a world is bringing upon us, as it morphs through the summer of change,  the shift through the star-gate, portals and potentialities which summon us on through these times.  By night,  intrepid explorer of the Zeitgeist,   following the flow of dreams, intuition, guidance, signs and events as they manifest themselves to me and my ability to 'translate' into patterns which shape the nature of the path ahead.

Out on the Griffin loop yesterday,  I felt barely conscious of my body.  So swept up into the dichotomies of these realities,  it seems I hardly have the chance to transition in- or out- of one state before I am drawn into the next.  As I started up 29th, I kept trying to 'locate' my feet and get grounded with Mother Earth, lost somewhere in dreamland, not quite registering the intensity of the early morning heat,  the movement of my legs up the street.
I found my way down Ravenswood finally catching up to myself.   A rhythm settled in to my gait as my breathing regulated....the 'drift' lifted as I felt the embrace of a glorious, quiet Sunday unfold before me.  The ride down 35th was steady and sure-footed and my head was full of nothing much at all except a quiet exhilaration deep inside as my body carried me on it's cadence of motion through Emerald Hills. 

Blazing sun through the cloud cover greeted me as I walked home.  I took my time and absorbed the show....

wondering as I often do, looking at the skies,  what is revealed in these atmospheric displays which might give a hint of our fate....of Mother Earth's intent.  Or maybe it's Her reflected joy, as She spreads light and color across the canvas of things just so....this happiness that comes with Creation. 

I understand that feeling.   I am there.   We are all creating our lives each and every moment,  just as the Grand Creatress of them all centers Herself upon Her potentiality and draws in the most urgent design...the formless seeking form,   the image seeking expression,  the Vision which must be born.  Rest assured,  there is an Imperative at work.  The World is heeding a Higher Calling....and it's about to call YOU to wake up to Her manifest beauty.  After all,  that's what She's been asking all along.  For once you really 'see' Her,  you will fall in love with Her.  And once that happens you will want to be as close as possible,  protecting and nurturing Her- just as She protects, and nurtures us.