Me on the beast again, putting in time tonite.
See, intervals sharpen the straw, but continuity of motion strengthens it. De-crapify it: Run long without stopping, become a better runner.
A big part of running distance - a disproportionately big part - is mindset. While I wouldn't advid someone 400 pounds over weight with bad joints trying a 10 km for their first run, I CAN say that once you have a base, it all turns into mind food.
It's really a moving meditation. If you have some of THAT practice under your belt, you can escape to a bit of the timeless place. Regardless, it's a pull of tension - after the white burn of warm up has drained and the blood vessels are happy in their transport work, you can either:
-stop
-run below a comfortable speed
-run at a comfortable speed
-run above a comforable speed
-push yourself
-hurt
And staying with the yin yang of it all, they all have pros and cons.
-Stopping - good if your injured, bad if it's a half-hearted surrender.
-Running below comfortable speed - good after a lot of miles or if you need to recover; bad if it's just because you haven't found the run's cajones and squeezed them a bit. Expect ennuie and half hearted surrender if you continue.
-Running at a comfortable speed - good, and a challenge if you're going for strengthening the saw; bad if it's the cajones thing. See previous point.
-Running above a comfortable speed - good for sharpening the saw; bad if you are on the edge of physical ill.
-Pushing it - see above.
-Hurting - see above and above.
I can stick with one or a couple of the above, or cycle through the whole thing, which is where the mind food comes in.
Started off comfortable tonite and ran for strength; first 5 or 7 minutes was fine. The mind had lots to chew on - things that happened today, philosophy, meditation, checking out what's going on around me, thinking about tonite. Then that food gets a little thin. Usually around the time that some level of exertion sets in.
At that point, I have the choice to either feed the mind more, starve it, or try and go to the timeless place.
Again, I usually transit through the three. There's correlation between the three and the plusses / minuses of the levels of exertion:
-run slow - easier to go on less mind food; counter-intuitively, this 'easier' space can be harder to maintain. The timeless place is maybe POTENTIALLY easier to get to from here, but staying there can be difficult - pulled back by a mind that is getting bored by the repetition of foot after foot after foot.
-run fast - it's not necessarily that it is easier to go on less mind food, there's just less choice about it period. When you're hurting and running the ragged edge to your capacity, it's hard to think about much but the seconds ticking off on the clock.
T'would be interesting to put together a mind-food diet for runners.
namaste
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Lilac Cathedral
So hot here, wet heat.
Part's internal - the controlled yo-yo of interval training, part of it is external - steam enveloping, relaxing, bringing up the core temp up bit by bit.
Close the eyes and mantra-up; thought recognition that established yogis are beyond hot and cold, pain and pleasure, happiness and suffering. By that definition I am nowhere near established, but the mantra brings some fleeting relief.
Relief from what? I am the one who brought the exercise to the pulse; pulse in the body; body to the room where I now sit. I am the one who feels the desire of heated, steamed relief and relaxation even in the midst of a workout; I am the one who is sitting here, of my own volition. I WANT to be here. Human beings move towards pleasure and away from pain. There's a still-borne syllogism there. Even if fully articulated, it would fail the experience somehow because I am sitting in discomfort (pain and heat) for pleasure. Apparently, I want both.
Mantra is not strong enough here to take me to the place of no-pain; there are some rat-bastard demonoids that had happy-fun-time ravaging different levels of the gross-body the last two weeks, and they are having their last kick at the can before they can be expelled for good out of the system. They've fucked the equilibrium up, as has sleep and psychotropics and emotion and energy and the whole web, shimmering and sliding me in an only partly controlled free fall (more a free tumble) down the web to the end where I held on in rock climber's finger gripping grace and just managed to pull myself up and over.
So eyes are closed now, legs are dangling over the edge of silver web, and the mind's eye is open and I'm surrounded by a distanced white black screen
and now
floating down, tiny lilacs; one, two, then ...
walls of lilacs, and pillars in front of and holding up the walls. And great gothic arches sprouting windows and turrets and crosses and all of it Lilac.
i'm at the center now, standing and surrounded, the sitting me on the web in the steam room is somewhere connected but distant, it's just me and this Lilac cathedral
And the flowers extend and hold me now, and I am part of the castle, breathing in centuries and out eons, eyes exploding inward and outward; refuting physics in this tiny complete point that is everything because it is nothing
and that thought is whisked away because this is not a place for thought, just experience, or better yet just awareness playing.
A step up from awareness.
Manifestation between the causal and the subtle and the gross.
And it's flight that is delivered now, just above the walls and floors and spires and basements of the cathedral; everything Lilac, I am lilac, and I am being delivered it seems to the spire of spires where on toes and arms extended backwards I sing in ecstasy as
the steam rolls in
and I'm bounced to the web, off the web to the benched room where causal, subtle and gross gel into Me again.
puka.
Close the eyes and mantra-up; thought recognition that established yogis are beyond hot and cold, pain and pleasure, happiness and suffering. By that definition I am nowhere near established, but the mantra brings some fleeting relief.
Relief from what? I am the one who brought the exercise to the pulse; pulse in the body; body to the room where I now sit. I am the one who feels the desire of heated, steamed relief and relaxation even in the midst of a workout; I am the one who is sitting here, of my own volition. I WANT to be here. Human beings move towards pleasure and away from pain. There's a still-borne syllogism there. Even if fully articulated, it would fail the experience somehow because I am sitting in discomfort (pain and heat) for pleasure. Apparently, I want both.
Mantra is not strong enough here to take me to the place of no-pain; there are some rat-bastard demonoids that had happy-fun-time ravaging different levels of the gross-body the last two weeks, and they are having their last kick at the can before they can be expelled for good out of the system. They've fucked the equilibrium up, as has sleep and psychotropics and emotion and energy and the whole web, shimmering and sliding me in an only partly controlled free fall (more a free tumble) down the web to the end where I held on in rock climber's finger gripping grace and just managed to pull myself up and over.
So eyes are closed now, legs are dangling over the edge of silver web, and the mind's eye is open and I'm surrounded by a distanced white black screen
and now
floating down, tiny lilacs; one, two, then ...
walls of lilacs, and pillars in front of and holding up the walls. And great gothic arches sprouting windows and turrets and crosses and all of it Lilac.
i'm at the center now, standing and surrounded, the sitting me on the web in the steam room is somewhere connected but distant, it's just me and this Lilac cathedral
And the flowers extend and hold me now, and I am part of the castle, breathing in centuries and out eons, eyes exploding inward and outward; refuting physics in this tiny complete point that is everything because it is nothing
and that thought is whisked away because this is not a place for thought, just experience, or better yet just awareness playing.
A step up from awareness.
Manifestation between the causal and the subtle and the gross.
And it's flight that is delivered now, just above the walls and floors and spires and basements of the cathedral; everything Lilac, I am lilac, and I am being delivered it seems to the spire of spires where on toes and arms extended backwards I sing in ecstasy as
the steam rolls in
and I'm bounced to the web, off the web to the benched room where causal, subtle and gross gel into Me again.
puka.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Place Between
Mechanical beast is ahead of me now, eye contact made, commitment in place.
Decisions line up like toy soldiers and are summarily dismissed with orders. It feels like the car is being driven by intuition, but that same intuition tells me that there is more going on than meets the I.
Coordinates are punched, fluids placed, eyes relaxed and ready and
shah!
We're off.
The first 30 seconds - the first of the first - is easy, tinged with a bit of hard. System is acclimatizing here, blood flowing from the torso cavity to the legs, light burn and lungs starting to heat up. The second 30 is a little bit more edge and then
huzzah
Onto the second minute, which is OK. A relief. 10 or 11 seconds to edge o'er the painful spot, then 20 seconds of inner repair work, then the rest to rest. A few seconds before that second minute is up and I'm ready to go again.
Edge that fucker a little higher this time, maybe a lot higher, pulse goes from 129 to 143..44.47.. and hovers in there.
shuka
The first 15 seconds are fine, then it starts to hurt, and when I start to look for toolsets.
Figure eights of breath winding from my navel to my head; rough sheaths going up and down the airway and
tik
I'm back. What did that take care of? Shit. 7 seconds. Close the lids halfway and look through a moonscape; internal / external, field of vision narrowing and expanding at the same time and I've forgotten about the pain for a minute ... a minute?
Shook!
Back and looking at the time. Still have almost 30 seconds left. Pulse is maintaining at a mid-high speed, aches settling in the legs, fear -white energy - coming up from the feet and
tik
I'm back again. 15 seconds left. I can hold this, stare down the numbers and just BE as the clock winds down.
Maybe not.
I close my eyes, hands out to hold onto the rails, open my eyes
close
open
close
and finally it's over. Button down, shitcakes, we're moving into slower gear now, hear?
sir yes sir
and we're 13.5 12 11 10 7 6 5.5
Ahhhh 5.5
Takes a few seconds for it to kick in but I'm not going anywhere. Decision made quickly that the minute of rest doesn't start up until the whole system is back down to a steady 5.5 Probably about
15 seconds
shah!
And we're on.
And the cycle repeats.
A lot like playing Centurion. The initial gap between the first shot of beer and the second seems interminably long, the second the same, the third a little less...and as the alcohol hits the central nervous system, the innerverse becomes an expression of a physicist's wet dream - time expands and contracts like a rubber ban. This, friends, is repeatable, falsifiable experience. Inner proof of the flexibility of time.
But the edge is lost in Centurion quickly. The innerverse on the machine or on the track, on thee other hand, is white fire and electric blues as the system is brought to Tilt then pulled back and caressed into recovery and readiness again.
It's duality merging here, under the auspices of physical exertion and the clock. The merge point starts with white hot suffering, taking me to the end of an inner yuga and presenting me slobbering, hot, hurting but standing to the rest period. But it is not an in door / out door. It is 10 or fifteen seconds where I transition from hurt to not-hurt. Not fully recovered, just not-hurt.
Even the 10 or fifteen seconds can be deconstructed into quantities that themselves can be deconstructed. We get to the 3:30 am point - not quite night, not quite morning, and yet somehow both. It's the place between.
And this is timelessness in a way. Not arrived to as gently as a soft perspective change or shift, not simply getting in the gap or sitting in Big Mind, more like a violent fuck into the space. Which makes it the same but different. Gap with an edge, a white hot blue edge around it that burns itself into memory, so it can be recounted, in places like This.
Decisions line up like toy soldiers and are summarily dismissed with orders. It feels like the car is being driven by intuition, but that same intuition tells me that there is more going on than meets the I.
Coordinates are punched, fluids placed, eyes relaxed and ready and
shah!
We're off.
The first 30 seconds - the first of the first - is easy, tinged with a bit of hard. System is acclimatizing here, blood flowing from the torso cavity to the legs, light burn and lungs starting to heat up. The second 30 is a little bit more edge and then
huzzah
Onto the second minute, which is OK. A relief. 10 or 11 seconds to edge o'er the painful spot, then 20 seconds of inner repair work, then the rest to rest. A few seconds before that second minute is up and I'm ready to go again.
Edge that fucker a little higher this time, maybe a lot higher, pulse goes from 129 to 143..44.47.. and hovers in there.
shuka
The first 15 seconds are fine, then it starts to hurt, and when I start to look for toolsets.
Figure eights of breath winding from my navel to my head; rough sheaths going up and down the airway and
tik
I'm back. What did that take care of? Shit. 7 seconds. Close the lids halfway and look through a moonscape; internal / external, field of vision narrowing and expanding at the same time and I've forgotten about the pain for a minute ... a minute?
Shook!
Back and looking at the time. Still have almost 30 seconds left. Pulse is maintaining at a mid-high speed, aches settling in the legs, fear -white energy - coming up from the feet and
tik
I'm back again. 15 seconds left. I can hold this, stare down the numbers and just BE as the clock winds down.
Maybe not.
I close my eyes, hands out to hold onto the rails, open my eyes
close
open
close
and finally it's over. Button down, shitcakes, we're moving into slower gear now, hear?
sir yes sir
and we're 13.5 12 11 10 7 6 5.5
Ahhhh 5.5
Takes a few seconds for it to kick in but I'm not going anywhere. Decision made quickly that the minute of rest doesn't start up until the whole system is back down to a steady 5.5 Probably about
15 seconds
shah!
And we're on.
And the cycle repeats.
A lot like playing Centurion. The initial gap between the first shot of beer and the second seems interminably long, the second the same, the third a little less...and as the alcohol hits the central nervous system, the innerverse becomes an expression of a physicist's wet dream - time expands and contracts like a rubber ban. This, friends, is repeatable, falsifiable experience. Inner proof of the flexibility of time.
But the edge is lost in Centurion quickly. The innerverse on the machine or on the track, on thee other hand, is white fire and electric blues as the system is brought to Tilt then pulled back and caressed into recovery and readiness again.
It's duality merging here, under the auspices of physical exertion and the clock. The merge point starts with white hot suffering, taking me to the end of an inner yuga and presenting me slobbering, hot, hurting but standing to the rest period. But it is not an in door / out door. It is 10 or fifteen seconds where I transition from hurt to not-hurt. Not fully recovered, just not-hurt.
Even the 10 or fifteen seconds can be deconstructed into quantities that themselves can be deconstructed. We get to the 3:30 am point - not quite night, not quite morning, and yet somehow both. It's the place between.
And this is timelessness in a way. Not arrived to as gently as a soft perspective change or shift, not simply getting in the gap or sitting in Big Mind, more like a violent fuck into the space. Which makes it the same but different. Gap with an edge, a white hot blue edge around it that burns itself into memory, so it can be recounted, in places like This.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Laughter and Tears
Dbm and I were yakking the other night, discussing laughter - and he made the statement that humans were wired to need laughter / humour - just like love, food, and other things.
Couldn't agree more.
Out for a daytrip to Calgary yesterday to say goodbye to Colin. Pulled up to the church 45 minutes before the service, and hit the holding area just inside. There were a string of experiences that just grabbed me by the throat and pulled me into abject sadness...the end of a life at 37 - absolutely surreal, still expecting him to come walk in at any moment...his family, orphaned without him, his wife, his boys. And some of the little things as well. Table by the entrance to the church that had a some pictures of Colin, and his boat keys. Zoom in on:
Boat Keys
Insignifigant physical item to anybody who didn't know Colin; something that could have seemed cleft from Colin's heart for anybody who did know him.
Grief was everywhere; overflowing church; so many tears and embraces, just the saddest of saddest of sad. Tangible, choking grief.
Followed by laughter.
If we could have graphed the experience, it would have shown a descent into unimaginable pain, followed by relief of some sort. Nothing changed during the service; Colin didn't come bounding up in a Huck Finn-ish fashion and surprise us with his well being. Nope, it was more of having made it through one more thing around this tragic loss. And a significant thing. Sifb and her boys have years ahead of their 'new normal' where they are going to have to grieve, recover, and grieve some more. But they made it through the viewing two days ago, and they made it through the public goodbye yesterday. We all did. And when we did, it was time to laugh a little bit.
We headed back to her place and partied in Colin's workshop, and it wasn't as much about mourning as just being together, laughing, starting to heal.
It'll take a long time for them, and in some ways you never really get over somebody's death - especially at that horrifically young age.
But they made it through the tears, into the laughter, and each time the cycle repeats it will get a little easier.
Peace Colin. Peace Sifb.
Peace.
Couldn't agree more.
Out for a daytrip to Calgary yesterday to say goodbye to Colin. Pulled up to the church 45 minutes before the service, and hit the holding area just inside. There were a string of experiences that just grabbed me by the throat and pulled me into abject sadness...the end of a life at 37 - absolutely surreal, still expecting him to come walk in at any moment...his family, orphaned without him, his wife, his boys. And some of the little things as well. Table by the entrance to the church that had a some pictures of Colin, and his boat keys. Zoom in on:
Boat Keys
Insignifigant physical item to anybody who didn't know Colin; something that could have seemed cleft from Colin's heart for anybody who did know him.
Grief was everywhere; overflowing church; so many tears and embraces, just the saddest of saddest of sad. Tangible, choking grief.
Followed by laughter.
If we could have graphed the experience, it would have shown a descent into unimaginable pain, followed by relief of some sort. Nothing changed during the service; Colin didn't come bounding up in a Huck Finn-ish fashion and surprise us with his well being. Nope, it was more of having made it through one more thing around this tragic loss. And a significant thing. Sifb and her boys have years ahead of their 'new normal' where they are going to have to grieve, recover, and grieve some more. But they made it through the viewing two days ago, and they made it through the public goodbye yesterday. We all did. And when we did, it was time to laugh a little bit.
We headed back to her place and partied in Colin's workshop, and it wasn't as much about mourning as just being together, laughing, starting to heal.
It'll take a long time for them, and in some ways you never really get over somebody's death - especially at that horrifically young age.
But they made it through the tears, into the laughter, and each time the cycle repeats it will get a little easier.
Peace Colin. Peace Sifb.
Peace.
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