This Week's Long Run

Running Matters (to a lunatic perhaps, and to which station I claim):

How much self transcendence is involved in the long distance run? Or the weight lifting and nutrition and time commitment necessary to be an endurance athlete? Or the patience required to just go along for several hours?

[This channel will be on hold for 4 hours while the runner goes running.]

Four plus hours and 22 plus miles later, am I still spiritual?

I began with humility and trepidation. The Presence of Holiness attended the lacing of the shoes and the layering of clothes, the filling of water bottles and the storage of energy packets; like a priestess preparing for the sacred liturgy in the temple of the long road.

I am a solitary runner. Today, in secret, I ran along and along; a mystery as I ran. The secret rock ritual, the secret pee, the hidden spat of anger at the stupid UA tights which were twisting around my leg; these little things are the mystery. To what purpose did that leaf hit me in the chest? For Whom have I endured the humiliation of the north wind and its inhumane lashes? I am shown to be the puny weakling that I am. My high tech gear does not prevent the wind from ravishing me to the bone.

I am a spirit and the mystery of running disembodies me. Today, alone in the park, down there, up there, down there, up there, put a rock on the post, squat to pee, take a package of Gu; around and around and around; I was nothing and nobody, a mystery. After three hours, I can’t think. I’m done praying, the song in my head has faded away, and simply run. I am moving forward, but my mind has begun grasping at straws.

I completed 6 laps plus ¾ of a lap. My butt was dragging that last partial lap. My body was not in pain, but my mind was having a tough time. At that point, any mind can rationalize shortening the run, not going all the way. This resistance is the self transcendence wall. Endurance takes you beyond your self; if you can somehow keep going. Each step is my affirmation to live, to be alive; to not live dead on the couch for the next 30 years. This is my way. Voluntarily strengthening the mind to go the last mile is why running matters. Distance running is optional; but so is self transcendence.

A shower, spirulina, chlorella, royal jelly, water, a salad, coffee.

I am having a hermit day. This means that I am not involved with people; taking a break from life. I did have my usual morning spiritual practice; but then I spent 4 hours on a long distance run. When I was in the monastery was when I first heard of hermit days. They allowed each person one day a month to be alone. This breach of community and reprieve from the liturgical work was justified in the eremitical tradition of monastic history. You were supposed to go into a silent desert (your cell) and spend time alone with your lover (God); and praying for the world. I did spend additional time in meditation those hermit days; but no more than I do every day in my current life as a solitary. I used hermit days to go for long runs. Of course back then, a long run was only about 10 miles; now as you can see, it is a bit more. My life in the world comes to fruition. The training leads to a marathon. The meditation leads to helping others. Now, when I pray for the world, it is my voluntary choice; not because I’m a nun and required to. My lover (God) still comes around, but His intensity is much more demanding. My self transcendence leads to voluntarily entering the inner Heaven; where the spiritual wind is as ravishing as the north wind I experienced on my run. The only difference is I have no protective clothing against the inner spiritual wind.

Candy from ACIM:

• God offers thanks to the holy host who would receive Him (Christ), and lets Him enter and abide where He would be.
• And by allowing Him to enter, the remembrance of the Father enters with Him, and with Him they remember the only relationship they ever had, and ever want to have.
  
  Now, I think I will retire to a reclining position.
  

Dream

I don't remember very many of my dreams. Usually when I do, they seem like nonsense. Last night I remembered a dream. At first, it also seemed like nonsense. But, later this morning, it seemed to carry some symbology which might be helpful to me.

I was at my old convent, although it didn't look like it, and I was helping them set up Christmas. I wasn't a nun, just living there. After we got done setting up, I needed a shower. So, I began running back to where our rooms were. I remember running very easily and being impressed by how fast and easy running was. I got to my room and gathered a towel or something. Then I went to hunt for a shower which wasn't being used. I decided to walk down to another old building where no one would be. At the first shower, you had to walk down some stone stairs to the basement hewed out of rock. The stairs were chipped and the railing was rusted; but I thought I could get down ok. Halfway down, I noticed a long buried sister above the stairs. She was tiny and petrified, but still dressed in a red and blue habit (like the statue of Maria Rickenbach, the name of the Swiss madonna enshrined at the mother house for that order). Half of her was in the rock roof of the stairway and half exposed. One of her arms was hanging down and I decided to yank it off as I passed underneath.

You guessed it! Yanking the arm woke that sister up. She came alive and started to grow larger into a normal sized person, alive and beautiful. She began talking to me, though I don't remember what she started out saying. But I remember saying, "I think you should go back to being dead." To which she replied, "But it was you who woke me up." She seemed to imply that I wanted her to be alive, even perhaps uncovering her and waking her up. I remember being afraid of her. And then I woke up. It was maybe 1 am and I went to the bathroom.

I went back to sleep and got up at 5. At 7 I left for the city and bought a few groceries. At 8, I was at a 12 step fellowship for a meeting. I was reading "How It Works" when I realized that this dream meant something.

It meant something in terms of this: as part of my A Course in Miracles (ACIM) workbook lesson, I had been uncovering my grievances, my sacrifices and my pain (these things are what my ego has to say). But also part of ACIM, is trying to realize how it is that I decided to leave God and dream an ego dream of unhappiness. The work of ACIM is to bring your pain to the Holy Spirit, to give up your grievances and awaken to your true Self within. Our ego's message is that we should be afraid to look within because we will find an awful demon; that we really are truly nasty and evil people. The Holy Spirit's message is that we are love, ideas in the mind of God who loves us and from Whom we never separated. I am confused. Was the dead sister a grievance I'd uncovered? Or was she my Self, but I am afraid because I am still in my ego?

I am leaning towards the idea that I am awakening; because the dead sister was beautiful and I know I had taken the action to uncover her and wake up to her. But I don't understand my Inner Beauty, hence I fear it. This is more or less a message of ACIM, when we really let go of our ego world, what we find inside is a loving Self. When we give up our ego guilt, we realize we never left God and He loved us all along while we dreamed the ego's dream of separation. I think I need to keep looking at this Self and try to understand her beauty. If you read yesterday's blog, you will see that I am gifted with seeing the light but have not allowed it authentically in. The dream sister did at least impact me. She was awake, I was awake. This situation has potential.

I am really only bloging right now because I am waiting for the roads to thaw. When I got back from the city, I drove around my town and tried to decide where I could run without worrying about snow. I found a road that will be good for running, but decided it needed a little more melt time. It won't take long.

Snowflake

Today, it snowed a little. I was standing outside doing some environmental testing. It was about 10F, so I had on my coveralls, my big down parka and bulky gloves. I was just able to hold a pencil and make notations on my clip board. One time as I was looking down and writing, I noticed one tiny perfect six petaled snow flake landed on my glove.

Today's ACIM workbook lesson for me is: Love created me like Itself. It struck me, here was love talking. You see, I had remembered my lesson while I was standing there; and then this tiny snowflake. The snowflake was a tiny door into the real world. It helped me.

Lament for God

Sometimes I say A Course in Miracles text is full of candy and treasure. It fills me with hope and joy and helps me cast out my ego’s negative thoughts. Sometimes, I have to ponder for several days, waiting for God’s Voice to filter through my defensive fog. Sometimes, I feel The Voice’s words bouncing off my closed mind and I wonder what I have to do to let Meaning in?

I cry out to God as I did last night in this letter to Jesus:

“Jesus, if I could sit and talk openly to you, I might express pain and sorrow: how little I know and how futile things seem. I don’t have brilliance or originality; though even as I write that, I know my truth is that I am brilliance and originality. These ideas are woven by God into my very being, inescapable. I know my truth is that I was created by God; but I don’t feel deeply appreciative of that. I wanted a thought of the deep connection with God. I wanted to feel the punch, the pull, the irrepressible Thou. I have nothing I can feel; but I want Something More.
I want to complain: all this study and I still don’t know anything. How do I use my God Mind to think something higher?"

And so I retreat into silence. I sit and contemplate the light. I look inside at Brilliance Itself. I am ignorant and do not understand what I see. Someday, someday, someday.

This is what the Course says: don’t try to reason it out, just let go and experience God. And so I sit before the Light and listen to the gentle whisper of The Voice. The Light is penetrating me.

The Experience

If you do not think you know God, perhaps you do know "...the attraction of God..." (ACIM). Have you experienced the Call, the Yearning, the Wishing for Something Greater than your puny a$$ existence? I have experienced this intense Wishing I Knew God; yes, yes. This Desire is in charge of my life.

Pause. Stop right now and allow THE EXPERIENCE of the attraction of God to wash over you, around you, through you and right into your heart. When I do this, my very being wiggles and wags and shivers in the onslaught of Love; which is God's attracting me to Him. He wants me more than I am capable of realizing. No I am not illuminated; but I am called by God and the attraction of God is what I experience. The experience in and of itself is divine. Experience the Experience without limits, beyond illumination; allow it. That is all: just allow and you will know everything.

Quiet 50th

Hi Everyone,


I am at work; the only one here for awhile. I'm the one that turns on the lights and plugs in the coffee pot. Although it is my birthday, my day started as usual: up at 3, spiritual study until 4:30, weight lifting and exer-bike, gather my stuff and come to work at 6. During my meditation, I realized that I was in an emotional slump. My ego does not want to serve God and often voices its concerns early in the morning. So I talked to Jesus about some different choices.


The truth is that there is nothing special about me. I will quietly suit up and show up everyday. My ego hates this. My ego despairs that God does not treat me special. Eating cake will not change this ego resentment. Only God can fulfill me, and so I turn to Him.


Most of my relationships are electronic. I am comfortable with this and grateful for the internet. I live in the boonies, so electronic is the only way to go. If I insisted on face-to-face, I'd have no one. Instead, I fancy I have a boy friend in South Africa and running buddies in Canada. I have received lots of best wishes. I'd love to hear from you.

Its my birthday and I am still me: reticent. I was going to post a mystical picture of what I think I looked like before I incarnated, but it didn't seem authentic. So I came to my day as usual. I'm afraid I don't sound all happy and triumphant; but I am well. I won't know if I am crabby until later!

Peace to all! Remember that in the eyes of God, you are completely absolved. God has no case against you and never did. God is Love and has no special relationships. Come home and be embraced.

It didn't snow last night, so I will get to go running today.

Oh well, what the heck...here is the picture:

I'm beautiful; aren't I? HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPIRIT FLOWER!!!!!!!!!

50th Anniversary Prayer

It has taken a year of study of A Course in Miracles (supplemented by a previous 25 years study of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and New Age); but I finally got my mind around the idea - I am/we are an idea of love in the Mind of Love (God). God is Love and God only can create love. So that is all any human can be: an idea of love. Everything else is an illusion. Extending love depends not on what charitable acts I do; or which person is standing in front of me. Extending love depends on what I am thinking. Any resentful thoughts ruin love and project hate instead of love. How to let go of all resentments is learned.

Take a look at this from A Course in Miracles (15.VI.4 and 5):

"4 You do not find it difficult to believe that when another calls on God for love, your call remains as strong. Nor do you think that when God answers him, your hope of answer is diminished. On the contrary, you are more inclined to regard his success as witness to the possibility of yours. That is because you recognize, however dimly, that God is an idea, and so your faith in Him is strengthened by sharing. What you find difficult to accept is the fact that, like your Father, you are an idea. And like Him, you can give yourself completely, wholly without loss and only with gain. Herein lies peace, for here there is no conflict.

5 In the world of scarcity, love has no meaning and peace is impossible. For gain and loss are both accepted, and so no one is aware that perfect love is in him. In the holy instant you recognize the idea of love in you, and unite this idea with the Mind that thought it, and could not relinquish it. By holding it within itself, there is no loss. The holy instant thus becomes a lesson in how to hold all of your brothers in your mind, experiencing not loss but completion. From this it follows you can only give. And this is love, for this alone is natural under the laws of God. ..."

Prayer:
Jesus, for my 50th birthday, I would like to give myself completely. I am perfectly capable of recognizing the idea of love every where in the world, and of dedicating my life to increasing my performance in extending the conscious awareness of love as my only consciousness. May I be exclusively committed to love. Please help me. Upon my "blowing out the candle" may they say, "She gave herself completely to love."

Since I plan to keep my candle burning for another 70 years, I should get to see the consciousness of divine love growing in the consciousness of the general population during that time. Significantly, everyone will know: love doesn't die, it just learns to give up its illusions.

[...love is all there is, love is all there is....I love you yeah yeah yeah...]

I just realized, I am still idealistic after 50 years of life here in an ego world. Isn't that fantastic! After 50 years, I am not cynically hardened, emotionally vindictive or hopeless! I have faith! Celebrate! This is a joyful moment! I still think I will remember God in this lifetime. I still think I will give up all my ego judgments and learn to love everyone. I still think I will realize that a consciousness of love is all I need and all I will want.

Today I ran 21 miles. I started out under a full moon and finished in bright sunshine. The three big black puppies mauled me. Instead of hating them, I thought, "those dogs are love."