This week: 18.75 hours of aerobic type exercise (of which 11.75 hours were running). 4 strength workouts. Yesterday, my long run was 21.6 miles of 9x1s on the flat. Today was 3h45 on trails.
Overall, my attitude is good. I continue to have no racing goals (although I keep toying with going in a quiet race on 10/31). The New Balance were comfortable for a long run yesterday, so I guess I'll stop using the Mizuno Wave Creation 11s. (crap).
I keep asking myself, why do I do this? And I don't really have a rational answer. Saying I want to isn't really an answer. But since I don't really know why I am alive at all, why should I know why I run? But I am sure that the future will bring the answer.
My long runs continue to be hours of answering my negative ego with a spiritual message. I do this continuously, not allowing my head to be wrapped up in worldly issues while I workout. This is a blessing as it carries over into my daily life. It is mind training for extended periods which I couldn't do for that long just sitting on a cushion.
On Saturdays and Sundays, after my morning run, shower and eating, I meditate. I sit still and keep my mind still. I am hoping for a thought which comes from the inside. I think I sense the Consciousness of Self. Self is silent. When I remember to attend to Self, I never want to stop.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
The First Answer to All Prayer...
....is silence.
Silence is the best, most loving and most respectful answer that God could give to His beloved creations.
Most of us fear silence and make crap out of it. Just think of how your doubts and false stories rise to the surface when you are "confronted" with silence. Silence is not loneliness, abandonment or contempt. Silence is not of this world. Silence is not a game or a co-dependent dance. Silence has no attachments. Silence can not be dis-illusioning.
Silence is an embrace. Silence is connection, communication and the deepest heart to heart intimacy. Silence has no barriers and is always naked. Silence does not lie and hides nothing.
I sit quietly in silence. I sit quietly with silence. My prayer is silent.
Silence is love. God is love. I am love.
Silence is the best, most loving and most respectful answer that God could give to His beloved creations.
Most of us fear silence and make crap out of it. Just think of how your doubts and false stories rise to the surface when you are "confronted" with silence. Silence is not loneliness, abandonment or contempt. Silence is not of this world. Silence is not a game or a co-dependent dance. Silence has no attachments. Silence can not be dis-illusioning.
Silence is an embrace. Silence is connection, communication and the deepest heart to heart intimacy. Silence has no barriers and is always naked. Silence does not lie and hides nothing.
I sit quietly in silence. I sit quietly with silence. My prayer is silent.
Silence is love. God is love. I am love.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Rock Bridge Revenge - 25k
Today I had the most fun I've had running a race since I can remember. I had an extremely happy time. I leaped and sprinted and all around felt like a gazelle, on a trail no less.
Clearly, I have chosen the contemplative path. Clearly, I am present to the divine Mind as He is to me. And, boy did I have fun today!
Why?
I was properly trained. that is, after the Fallsburg trail marathon in August, I vowed to run trails. I simply had to develope some quad strength. So, since then, I found a short trail near my house. Once a week, I go over there and run back and forth for a couple of hours. OMG, that seems to have done wonders. I can now leap over logs. I can now scramble well enough to keep myself from falling if I trip. Even after 3 hours of trails, my legs feel really really good.
The training was one reason. The other was that I was only doing 25k, so I allowed myself to run as fast as I could. If I had been doing 50k, I would have had to slow down, conserve energy and basically enter a totally different type of running, which I now recognize is not that fun. Hopping and jumping and zipping along was really a blast. Worrying about fuel and time and blisters and a long drive home and work tomorrow would not have been fun.
This is the first time I can remember ever finishing a race and being totally energized and happy.
- I got a hotel room in Columbia - successful because I could find the starting line the day before as well as sleep much later on race day (I still got up at 5 as it was).
- For breakfast, I ate a Myoplex protein bar and a power bar, with coffee and Emergen-C and vitamins, including spirulina - successful because I felt so full of energy during the race, even wondering if I needed any gels.
- This was my first race in trail shoes - success. Trails are much easier with those shoes than my road shoes.
- I didn't run any further than what I was trained for. Therefore, I could throw my heart and soul into to performance and not hold back.
What did I think about? God. I was not repeating a phrase like I usually do. I pondered the questions: why do I think I need to defend my practice of sitting quietly and turning my mind inward to the light? Well, apostolic Christians keep pushing my buttons in that area; like what good is it to be alone attending God? Really?
As I was running by myself along the trail, I felt like I was giving to the universal energy pattern. My act of running for all I was worth was a gift to Something. Then, I realized that sitting and attending is the same thing: a gift. That I can't explain the gift to someone who doesn't give that gift does cause me to scratch my head. I've encountered Christians who actually think the meditative practices are evil. Yes, its true that solitaries are viewed suspiciously by many; and believed to be psychologically abnormal. But, I know I am giving. I do not need another physical body in order to give my gift. That is a breakthru in believing for me.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Defending Silence
I often find myself needing or wanting to defend silence and solitude. The world seems to think silence and solitude are so worthless; or that solitaries are insane. It is so ego to feel like I need to explain what is valuable about being alone and focusing all attention on God.
Here is a few touching phrases on silence from A Course in Miracles text (28.I): "The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in quiet then, to other minds to share its quietness. And they will join in doing nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind Which caused all minds to be. Born out of sharing, there can be no pause in time to cause the miracle delay in hastening to all unquiet minds, and bringing them an instant’s stillness, when the memory of God returns to them. Their own remembering is quiet now, and what has come to take its place will not be wholly unremembered afterwards...He to Whom time is given offers thanks for every quiet instant given Him. For in that instant is God’s memory allowed to offer all its treasures to the Son of God, for whom they have been kept. ....The instant’s silence that His Son accepts gives welcome to eternity and Him, and lets Them enter where They would abide. For in that instant does the Son of God do nothing that would make himself afraid...The trumpets of eternity resound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is now remembered is not fear, but rather is the Cause that fear was made to render unremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Son of God remembers from before his own remembering came in between the present and the past, to shut them out."
To remember God by using your memory to remember Him instead of all the other worldy clutter is part of what The Course teaches. Practicing this skill is done in silence.
As my time studying ACIM lengthens, my hatred of others lessens. What a relief.
Here is a few touching phrases on silence from A Course in Miracles text (28.I): "The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in quiet then, to other minds to share its quietness. And they will join in doing nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind Which caused all minds to be. Born out of sharing, there can be no pause in time to cause the miracle delay in hastening to all unquiet minds, and bringing them an instant’s stillness, when the memory of God returns to them. Their own remembering is quiet now, and what has come to take its place will not be wholly unremembered afterwards...He to Whom time is given offers thanks for every quiet instant given Him. For in that instant is God’s memory allowed to offer all its treasures to the Son of God, for whom they have been kept. ....The instant’s silence that His Son accepts gives welcome to eternity and Him, and lets Them enter where They would abide. For in that instant does the Son of God do nothing that would make himself afraid...The trumpets of eternity resound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is now remembered is not fear, but rather is the Cause that fear was made to render unremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Son of God remembers from before his own remembering came in between the present and the past, to shut them out."
To remember God by using your memory to remember Him instead of all the other worldy clutter is part of what The Course teaches. Practicing this skill is done in silence.
As my time studying ACIM lengthens, my hatred of others lessens. What a relief.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Mojo
Sometimes we talk about losing your mojo. I've been experiencing such a thing. To me, I want to know what my mojo is, where did it come from and do I want it. I see the loss of mojo as a metaphysical success. I see my mojo as a veil of ego which covers over my inner truth, keeping me too busy with the world to realize who I really am. The mojo was successfully worn away by day after day of steady wearing down in hours on the bike, the tm, the nordic track and the roads.
In seeking futility as a conscious deliberate act, aquired on purpose, I become metaphysically alien. I must stop complaining. I have uncovered the depth of my soul. It is dark it is so deep. I try not to be afraid. I reach for my Higher Power's hand and we seek to go into the depths of Truth. It is a chance at re-creation. I seek to liquidate my past and move forward into something new. So I choose for now to live with ennui, the inherent bleakness of being human; while my Higher Power gently and slowly leads me deeper.
In seeking futility as a conscious deliberate act, aquired on purpose, I become metaphysically alien. I must stop complaining. I have uncovered the depth of my soul. It is dark it is so deep. I try not to be afraid. I reach for my Higher Power's hand and we seek to go into the depths of Truth. It is a chance at re-creation. I seek to liquidate my past and move forward into something new. So I choose for now to live with ennui, the inherent bleakness of being human; while my Higher Power gently and slowly leads me deeper.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Middle Class Hero
I am the everyday un-illuminated, the New Age un-enlightened. I am the group that sought God in every possible way, from conservative right Christian to pseudo-Buddhist to channeled entity to sweat lodges, vision quests and labyrinths. In the convent, I sat for hours adoring the Blessed Sacrament. Post convent, I fasted for extended periods of time and then ate only raw foods. As far as I know, Revelation didn’t happen.
What I am I is a mature American woman, single, professional, white, educated, vegetarian, long distance running, health freak. I have been in pursuit of God since an unfortunate (or fortunate) trip to Israel at the age of 22. But my actual life has mostly been about going to work in order to have money and staying straight emotionally. I’ve not succeeded at suburban family life, nor at weirdness pretending to be wisdom. The heroes of my cultural heritage are the ones that retire young and live comfortably. Since the American economy no longer plays that game for us, I am one of many who will not retire young, if ever. The crumbling of the United States is just enough to show us its false unfounded delusions of grandeur.
My culture does not have a class of wise ones.
My problem is that my story is not a hero’s story. I have done what is heroic in other people’s stories, but in mine it is ho hum. I am done with the pseudo-Buddhist bullshit and the romance of suffering for Christ.
Before I went monastic, I fit in. Post monastic, I scorned society. I did not settle for a life of fitting in with ordinary social groupings (and everyone is encouraged by psychology to fit in somewhere). My scorn turns out to be pure ego. It is not based on any real advantage. I don’t have a special place in anything to justify my position. I just don’t want to be like “them,” to be contaminated by their corrupted food, overeating, television programming or useless conversations. But I am not special either. So I have sunk into nothing.
Nothing can be made of nothingness. I’ve tried that too; the romanticizing or spinning of nothingness into a prized position, close to God. Recently, in a brief interlude of difficult emotions, I came to the truth. I suddenly realized that I am in a valley, not the inhabitor of mountain tops at all. It is a delusion to think some sudden discontinuity in reality will save me. Not even A Course in Miracles, which offers a way out, has transported any of its followers in THIS lifetime.
So I guess I will go running, lift weights, collect my paycheck, eat tofu, drink coffee and quietly grow. That is the blessing of my life: I do keep growing.
What I am I is a mature American woman, single, professional, white, educated, vegetarian, long distance running, health freak. I have been in pursuit of God since an unfortunate (or fortunate) trip to Israel at the age of 22. But my actual life has mostly been about going to work in order to have money and staying straight emotionally. I’ve not succeeded at suburban family life, nor at weirdness pretending to be wisdom. The heroes of my cultural heritage are the ones that retire young and live comfortably. Since the American economy no longer plays that game for us, I am one of many who will not retire young, if ever. The crumbling of the United States is just enough to show us its false unfounded delusions of grandeur.
My culture does not have a class of wise ones.
My problem is that my story is not a hero’s story. I have done what is heroic in other people’s stories, but in mine it is ho hum. I am done with the pseudo-Buddhist bullshit and the romance of suffering for Christ.
Before I went monastic, I fit in. Post monastic, I scorned society. I did not settle for a life of fitting in with ordinary social groupings (and everyone is encouraged by psychology to fit in somewhere). My scorn turns out to be pure ego. It is not based on any real advantage. I don’t have a special place in anything to justify my position. I just don’t want to be like “them,” to be contaminated by their corrupted food, overeating, television programming or useless conversations. But I am not special either. So I have sunk into nothing.
Nothing can be made of nothingness. I’ve tried that too; the romanticizing or spinning of nothingness into a prized position, close to God. Recently, in a brief interlude of difficult emotions, I came to the truth. I suddenly realized that I am in a valley, not the inhabitor of mountain tops at all. It is a delusion to think some sudden discontinuity in reality will save me. Not even A Course in Miracles, which offers a way out, has transported any of its followers in THIS lifetime.
So I guess I will go running, lift weights, collect my paycheck, eat tofu, drink coffee and quietly grow. That is the blessing of my life: I do keep growing.
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