Stepping Out into the New

Thanks to the kids, and a Sports Authority sale, I was able to bag a couple new pair of shoes.  I've ran in the Sauconys 2 days now:  very nice!  Structured but plenty of cushion, apparently something I need these days.  The others, Nike Luna free, are a riff off the Nike frees, and minimal like my Brooks.  I haven't launched them yet-  hopefully they will be good for 'off' days when mileage is not priority.

As every runner knows, new shoes are the quintessential tool for instantly improving motivation and desire to run!  Unless they truly suck of course.   I have run through most brands now, and every time I think I found 'the one'- the magic cure for all the challenges of running,  a guarantee delivery of a smooth and productive ride. 

Mom's birthday was this weekend;   I am stepping out into uncharted territory, exploring the world sans parents and the responsibilities shouldered through stable times, prolonged illness,  and finally deaths.   What I thought I could accommodate in my significant other, while busy attending to everything else, I finally realized with insight like a bolt of lightening- I cannot.  My single status, which was a sub-text in the pseudo-relationship on and off over these many years, feels finally official- and right.   For once I feel the need for space in which the direct voices of planetary changes can speak to me, unencumbered.   And the music of my own soul's healing can be heard. 

I understand why my clients are scared of change, and the 'unknown'.   For what seems like Forever, I have been 'traveling' roads in this world and others, on my way to and from the security of rest points, community, humanity- out on my own.   Many artists/creative folk have this same inner conflict between the needs of the outer world and the pull of their own rich inner landscapes.  It is never an easy relationship to be Right Brain in a Left Brain world.

Today's run was a simple Emerald Hills loop, running most of the upper part, walking the Thomas stretch home.   I thought about how many times I have run around these neighborhoods, both in prime training mode, when 6 miles felt like a walk in the park, and in more relaxed mode when a loop like that taxes me.   Age has certainly made me appreciate the feeling of running while aware that what I demand of my body, its not always able or willing to deliver.

So there are new ways now to step out, to see the World;  with patience, appreciation and a simple love of The Story as it unfolds-  for me, for all of us, for generations to come.

Getting a Hold on Myself

I left any expectations about this morning's run behind.  I woke when I came awake, which is pretty much my usual time, thanks to my work and training schedule.  My body is firmly grounded in my routine which works for me.  Even fluctuations will not throw me too far off.  The lack of plan is my way of looking into the template of miles per week and exploring what supports my optimal health.

It was just shy of comfortably cool;  the winds pull the chill into me, and my lack of internal thermostat makes regulating me to stay warm, even on the run, a challenge.  Sure enough, as I passed the park, women in shorts, shirts etc contrast with my pull over and knit headband.  Once I adjusted, however, the resistance from the wind coming full in my face all the way up/down the overpass and 29th Street became a strong part of the drill;  the core of running is endurance.   What facilitates our fitness is the ability to adapt to, and persist in our pace even when conditions change. 

I have this knack of holding this meta-analysis in my head while my body performs the percussive back and forth of the run.  Wood carving had a similar effect on me;  the process of wood mass, whether root, slab or stump undergoing my persistent pounding to find the inner image- sometimes taking 6 months or a year on big sculptures,  was my first experience with the effect of 'practice' on my psyche, and surely what 'broke me open' in those days.  Since then, I have had an understanding that Big Goals are what propel me.  I need the feeling of effort and energy, the creation of, like any artist acting from inner compulsion to pull something-from nothing- into this world. 

Running has no physical imprint.  Maybe this is one reason it awakens something important in me in this stage of my life.  I need 'works' to validate my Inner Eye.  I need running to sync my inner and outer lenses to amplify my perception.  And it must work, because the calm and groundedness I feel on the run seems to be the springboard for having the endurance to handle everything else.

I have always said my reason for being whatever I am, artist, writer, counselor, runner comes from this inexplicable awareness always within me of the vast Realities of manifest Life;  the dark places that used to trip and toss me onto brush piles of psychic debris feel more like hidden gold.  I still stumble;  but just as I hit waves of fatigue, when my feet refuse the pace I hear in my head,  if I give it a minute, I usually rally.   I always do.   We must come to have confidence in Ourselves.

Surge of Self Love

It was chillier and windier than I expected this morning;  I was momentarily caught off guard until I began my brisk walk up to my start point, where the road cuts off the main drag into the quiet neighborhoods and I actually begin the run.  As I got going, slow, slow, I noticed how patches of sunlight would create puddles of warmth my body would relax into, before pushing off into the next stretch of chilly shade.   Like stepping stones in water, I found myself instinctively watching for these areas, and enjoyed the revolution of warm, cool, warm as I got a rhythm going towards Griffin.

It was the 3rd day of a 3 day stretch.  An experiment, since I sit so much at work, I am playing with the idea of limiting the time off in order to create the 'expectation' in my body that we will move in some form or fashion, long or short, walk or run.  If you do not have a moving practice, you are missing the greatest tool for mind/body/spirit there is.  I have more than my share of insecurities, body issues,  as the 'anti-athlete', the 'shlubby girl' who knew more about paints and books than any sport.  Over these years of running I have reconnected with very old parts of myself, the child who trekked all around our neighborhood trails and back woods, the young adult always looking for a new walk, route or path into the areas I've lived. 

The appreciation I sometimes feel for my body is beyond the practical goals of weight maintenance, miles per week,  or racing.  As I stretched before today's run, I felt a surge of love for these many parts which can work together in such flawless harmony to take me on these jaunts and enjoy the wonder and beauty of the world.  To see with the eyes of my inner artist,  in which inherent synchronicity is expressed through the essence of things,  and perceived with loving acknowledgment is certainly the secret to my motivation.  I am never disappointed by the Light, the soft air, the colors of Life.  There is a dialogue in my head between the outer and inner and often, on the run, I can feel it's rhythm come right up through my feet as I listen to the swoosh swoosh of Nature's words.

The World is in love with us;  can we be in Love with the World?  Take yourself out to the heart of Nature and listen.  She's there.

The Bridge to Spring

While much of the country is hunched into the latest blast of Winter with a Capital WOW, I took a relaxed walk at the park in weather that felt like winter has never been here;  warm, breezy, bright....
the benefit of living in sub-tropic clime.  Ground hog's day, Imbolc, the Bridge to Spring as the mid-point between winter solstice and spring equinox is marked in many places and probably dates back to cyclical eras beyond memory.  Meanwhile, in our time, the World continues to wobble along a fractured sense of constancy.  What we come to expect from one season to the next is revised in the pressure of change.   Just when you think Mother Nature cannot out-do Herself, prepare to be surprised.  As I heard in the news:  "When the meteorologists are taken by surprise, you know something extraordinary is happening."

I've had several hard runs lately, so today's easy jaunt around the park was a chance to just let my body unwind.  After a little yoga, I sat on the bank of the lake and meditated to Tom Kenyon's soundscapes, and felt the woosh of the winds all around, sweeping the molecules from me, into the Breath of Earth, something I could feel and see with my inner eye.

Cracking open this old shell of repression, into a new world is full upon us.  Never before have I felt the push to 'pick sides', to assist my clients in clarifying what they fight for when they fight for their very lives.  In the swirl of intensity which calls us to ever greater clarity in every day life, standing firm in our Intent for what we are about is being exemplified all across the globe;  where the Old Guard once pressed the people down, the People are now rising up.   Surely, if our brothers and sisters can risk everything for freedom, we can do the same.

Today, I dedicate the excitement of Life, the purpose of my path, to sparking the light of purpose and meaning for all...the Bridge to Spring is a way laid for us by Those who went before us, and know it is high time to get on our Way.

Fluctuations

Like shifting sands in changing landscapes, the force of my will and emotions keeps oscillating between points of time.  Never sure from one minute to the next if I'm standing stable on my own Self platform, or flying into a dreamworld where every thread of my history seems to be trying to work itself out.

For the first time this week, a dream about Mom and Dad, together, hanging out with the rest of the players in the plot, easy, smiley, clearly reflecting the grace I imagine they share in their mutual transition.  The assumption of my own constant state of transition is itself in question:  even the usual outcomes of potentials for the future seem fragile, as if any movement could dislodge the one thing that will anchor me.

I ran long on Sunday, maybe the best and longest run in a while.  The weather and other disruptions have kept me from the roads since.  Today I managed a 4+ miler on the treadmill, which was much tougher than I anticipated.  Miami marathon takes place this Sunday coming, and no I am not participating.  My hope is to take myself out for a run in homage to the event and the runners who are putting themselves on the line, and find my own route through the inconsistency of my efforts.  One day, some way, I will resurrect the runner in me who feels stronger and better with every run.  But that time does not seem to be now.

When the world talks to us, we seem to pick up the words, images and signs which reflect our inner yearnings and unfolding.  Lately its been this theme of fluctuations, ebbs, flows, contractions and expansions.  We come to expect the rhythm as something we should recognize, control.  When the speed goes out of our range or understanding we experience it as chaos, distress, discomfort.  I hope I am learning to pause just long enough to appreciate the rate of change as a Rhythm outside my current capacity to encompass.  I like the idea that a Song is being sung of us, our world, and leading us like a Pied Piper to, not illusion, but transcendence.   Every moment seems rich in potential;  the delicate balance of staying awake and aware to the Center which holds us feels even more important.  And I somehow feel supported by the swoosh of nothing at all.

Doors Open

I made sure to take myself up on the Griffin loop, to prepare for returning to work and the routines of the week, and mostly to settle my mind and nerves for the transition.  Running is the great 'oxygenator';  it washes the system in the subtle euphoria of movement and air, and gives me freedom from the clunky reality of the 3-D world.  I had several nice stretches, completely non-logical- for after several weeks of inconsistent running which came with Mom's passing, you would think I would have much less endurance.

I don't get the sense that there is any particular trauma associated with Mom's transition, unlike my Dad who really went through a lot those last months.  I think all in all Mom had it together and was finally ready to go.  What she leaves is the sudden reality of our orphaned state and the mandate for us, the next generation of elders to take our formal place. 

For me, it is the end of the primary purpose to my move to Florida.  From 1999 until now, and most especially the last 3-4 years, my life was the safety net for my folks, and my role became ever more involved as their condition deteriorated.  For the first time in my working career, I am approaching the Open Door of possibility, knowing my own kin, my blood and spiritual families, are solid in their own directions. 

I will not pretend to know which direction, yet, calls me.  With the approach of ever more remarkable and creative shake-ups, and the volume turned up for those of us who can 'hear' the vibrational shifts,  I will begin as I would at any choice point; I will pray.

My honored mother and father, you who are now part of the legacy of ancestors, joining with the rest of my blood and soul family to link us, the living, with the power of Life on all planes:  May your healing rest bring you to your own next place of evolution, and as you continue, place us in your hearts to lead and guide us through the times ahead.  I can sense your Love all around.... be at peace, my dear ones.  Shed light on the soft dark corners of confusion, and allow us all to be right where we need to be.

Chapters Close/Open: RIP Mom

This is the 4th time I've tried to write this..its early morning 1-1-11, and I couldn't sleep.  I wanted to get an homage up for Mom before I lost steam...already lost my earlier entries, so here goes again:

Alice M Kaufman Cowen, born Feb 20, 1921, died Dec 31, 2010.  She was just shy of the New Year, and her 90th birthday.  What began as 'trouble breathing' became her door out, and she did it pretty peacefully.  

This is her High School photo.  My mom, always the beauty.  Last visit she said to me "I was the smart one."  Beauty and brains.  The entire dynamic of our relationship has been how 2 similarly smart women were defined by their generations.  For Mom it was marriage, 4 kids, 9 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren, various job/career attempts, and her vast connection to her large extended family and circle of friends.  Many of whom still kept up about her right to the end.   My mom who survived my dad, her sisters and all other elder relatives, the last.   She admired my independence.  I couldn't fathom her patience with things I came to admire after her stroke.  Last visit we agreed "I guess we gotta go with the flow."

The nurse told me that moment of clarity is very common, a last rally.  I'm glad I got to share it;  I had her focus in the ER before I realized finally that the fixed stare had not moved...and it was only a matter of time between then and her final passing in a bed upstairs.

I write this because its cathartic for me, and for the out of towners who may not make it in.  I write, too, just to extend the time a bit to be with her and by extension my dad, who I imagine are enjoying a well-deserved reunion.  We said goodbye to Vitae this year too, so I can add the reassurance of an extra guiding hand if needed.

Alice Cowen, you lived a very long and productive life.  You braved through trials and tribulations that those in my generation would hardly handle- you taught me how to accept and embrace life no matter what.  We wish you safe and swift travels on your spirit journey, dearest soul.  I stand with all my family members and your vast circle of friend, in wishing you Welcome Home.....!  Go and lay down all your pain and burdens.  You are Free at last.

Love you always Mom....
xoxoxoxoxo