Not fully responsible, or NFR.
Close to NFG, but that would be by those quite blind-stricken by the true events of the evening; those with a short memory or rather a lack of depth in things of the heart and spirit.
Some, but not all of those, would also be the first in line to call me a rambler; long with the pen and short with the facts. And in response to those, sigh; I can only give the facts; and those through the personality I am cloaked with.
Yes, it was my decision to run the mountain trail, with its quail and rivulets and Blair Witch sensibilities. Running from the open woods to the wet shrouded blanket of quiet life under the canopy, to the radio tower with its oblique warnings and buzzing hydro wires running east and west down the mountain.
Yes, it was my decision to eat at double speed o'er the years; well resourced in what a healthy adult should eat all that time - still, I chose the dollops of butter and mayo and fatty bits from the steak in lieu of greens and crisp apples and sweet rich yams, full of the stuff my body needs.
Why then NFR? Because sleepy samskaras run deep. No matter the progress, all I have to do is sit in a business meeting or a concert and let the lids fall to half mast. The mind follows suit, and the ghosts drop their gauzed, gilded blankets around my shoulder, sit down with popcorn and watch their show.
In those situations it is usually desire for unity with a loved one, so strong my body literally contracts in its presence, only able to emit a kind of wail through the heart.
Today, it's not a mental but a physical tiredness that has set in; that's come up from the rich wet ground, impaled itself via the roots and rocks that gave a little pain as a hint; splashed up from the brown cloudy puddles; washed away by the rivulets both heard and felt, only to return on the next technical climb, jump, or pulse-raising move upward.
The pulse has settled now, down from 180 to 130 as, Radio tower behind me, I walk slowly back and forth, hoping the blood-sugar will kick in.
But before it can - or perhaps because it did - i am impaled with light from five points and pulled apart.
It simply Is in the heart. This is not the world of logic, geometry, dimensions and time. There's no starting point or ending point. It is simply there in the heart. Wording it here is like trying to catch your reflection in the wind; nonsensical and impossible. Still, there's some value felt in the heart, and so the description continues:
It explodes through the legs, carrying them deep into the ground where they wrap around roots and rocks and minerals' grace.
It explodes through the arms, winding them around the hydro towers and trees and my fingers are the wet and dripping pine connecting the rivulets up mountain with the scaled bulbous food sources sea-side
It launches my head on a braid of gold through the clouds, through powder and dark blues to the carpet of stars that shower down around the senses like buzzing flowers, rooting themselves in god's bookshelves on their way down to earth. And then like fireworks the senses themselves arc and depart, leaving long trails of light behind them; hearing and heard; seeing and the seen; tasting and the tasted; feeling and the felt; smelling and the smelt
Awareness begets its ten thousand children. Deep in the ground, or dancing with supernovas, or running with river rocks towards a saline economic system. Or walking arm-in arm with the rambler with his too many thoughts and too many words and with *that* recognition his contraction
into to the runner heading back into the woods, and the rivulets and mud and puddles and strange echoes; realizing how Not Fully Responsible is just a pointer, a taste to the One-ness. How can there be volition or responsibility where there is no 'I'?
Maybe it's just too many words rambled out, which are in fact the perfect amount of words, when their source is recognized
as no-thing.
Namaste.
Showing posts with label running. Show all posts
Showing posts with label running. Show all posts
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Friday, March 6, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Mind Food
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
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
Monday, February 16, 2009
Solid Lines of Broken Glass
The oval has its advantages and disadvantages
As long as it is runnable outside (and my broad definition of runnable is a ground without blatant snow or ice), it provides a labyrinth of sorting that removes much of the chafe and challenge of the road or sidewalk.
The first few laps are the blood vessels reacquainting themselves with what it feels like to truly open to the demands in front of them. A steady white ache in the legs that burns quickly, then transfers up into the airways; heart picking up speed, lungs quickening.
This is the gross of the gross, the top of the colander as the shakedown and sorting unfolds. It stays up top, fading a little, as the next levels drop
down
And we're into the world of breath and heart and muscles and time and mind. Not as in your face difficult as the first level for sure, but there are subtle demons that more or less pull out their deck chairs and settle in for the run. There is a stridency here, in spite of the laizzez fare attitude. Time is clearly the ring leader. Even when all else is settling into rhythmic trance, Time has but to raise the baton and everybody else is backseated to the push, pull or discomfort he decides to manifest.
This too, can be shaken down staying up top as the even finer level of the run settles down.
Will and Itent.
Two brothers, these: Will the stable and predictable; Intent, the well meaning but sometimes fragile of the two.
And below these
Is.
Follow the non-linear linear tangent, the laser line from the finest level of oval the the intuitive level outside of Oval.
This would be fine weather sidewalk barefooting; salted face and saline sheet pulled from the stars to skin surface level; portable shade slipping down the olfactory awning, sear and pull, sear and pull as steady as a commuter train as I roll on slightly downhill to the turaround point until
diamond in front of me; image sharpened by the dull of the shades, a shift out of harms way, followed by a decision tree.
To the left, intuition, IS, run without fear but without direction.
To the right, hierarchy and structure, linear thought, the steps that might deliver me safely from shredded feet.
Inevitably, the left wins. It HAS to win, if I have any hope of navigating these lines of broken glass. And the lines collect and disperse like water through a creekbed; swaths scattered by an invisible reclusive gem gardener. Each sparkle a part of the mandala that will be pushed and pulled by traffic and weather and feet and wheels and paws and dust and time. Each sparkle a little cutting machine.
So it's a chosen path to NOT think. To be, a little thanks with each step that no damage has been done, a little hope with each following step that no damage WILL be done. Each lift and pull of the nekkid foot a whirlpool of belief, faith, hope, and a little fear...
Mantra beyond mantra, just trying to be in the arms of the divine, knowing that karma and fate and will and luck and disregard are all playing a part, drifting like billowing silk over the melting tar and embedded ego-checkers, until I'm through.
IS as intuitive grappling
IS a place of No-Thought and being.
Still in the world of the dual, but inexorably bound to the non-dual.
Because 'Is' is the non-dual, another form appearing and dissolving in and off the oval.
namaste
As long as it is runnable outside (and my broad definition of runnable is a ground without blatant snow or ice), it provides a labyrinth of sorting that removes much of the chafe and challenge of the road or sidewalk.
The first few laps are the blood vessels reacquainting themselves with what it feels like to truly open to the demands in front of them. A steady white ache in the legs that burns quickly, then transfers up into the airways; heart picking up speed, lungs quickening.
This is the gross of the gross, the top of the colander as the shakedown and sorting unfolds. It stays up top, fading a little, as the next levels drop
down
And we're into the world of breath and heart and muscles and time and mind. Not as in your face difficult as the first level for sure, but there are subtle demons that more or less pull out their deck chairs and settle in for the run. There is a stridency here, in spite of the laizzez fare attitude. Time is clearly the ring leader. Even when all else is settling into rhythmic trance, Time has but to raise the baton and everybody else is backseated to the push, pull or discomfort he decides to manifest.
This too, can be shaken down staying up top as the even finer level of the run settles down.
Will and Itent.
Two brothers, these: Will the stable and predictable; Intent, the well meaning but sometimes fragile of the two.
And below these
Is.
Follow the non-linear linear tangent, the laser line from the finest level of oval the the intuitive level outside of Oval.
This would be fine weather sidewalk barefooting; salted face and saline sheet pulled from the stars to skin surface level; portable shade slipping down the olfactory awning, sear and pull, sear and pull as steady as a commuter train as I roll on slightly downhill to the turaround point until
diamond in front of me; image sharpened by the dull of the shades, a shift out of harms way, followed by a decision tree.
To the left, intuition, IS, run without fear but without direction.
To the right, hierarchy and structure, linear thought, the steps that might deliver me safely from shredded feet.
Inevitably, the left wins. It HAS to win, if I have any hope of navigating these lines of broken glass. And the lines collect and disperse like water through a creekbed; swaths scattered by an invisible reclusive gem gardener. Each sparkle a part of the mandala that will be pushed and pulled by traffic and weather and feet and wheels and paws and dust and time. Each sparkle a little cutting machine.
So it's a chosen path to NOT think. To be, a little thanks with each step that no damage has been done, a little hope with each following step that no damage WILL be done. Each lift and pull of the nekkid foot a whirlpool of belief, faith, hope, and a little fear...
Mantra beyond mantra, just trying to be in the arms of the divine, knowing that karma and fate and will and luck and disregard are all playing a part, drifting like billowing silk over the melting tar and embedded ego-checkers, until I'm through.
IS as intuitive grappling
IS a place of No-Thought and being.
Still in the world of the dual, but inexorably bound to the non-dual.
Because 'Is' is the non-dual, another form appearing and dissolving in and off the oval.
namaste
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