Good or Not

Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization. ~ Lindburgh

Good or not we all might run. For most of us who even think to read about distance running, our running has been "good".  But this is not what I am really referring to.  We have continued forward... running without promises of reward or goodness.  Good or not many also now write.  We write lots of things... millions of blogs, digital fragments included, thousands of books, yet all happen with regularity - good or not. {And we all know they are certainly NOT all "good"!} 

As a distance runner, when there is something within us which has been designed to run and has been forming from the beginning of our childhood, when many things which are grafted into our soul, have become a product of who we are, we are inevitably faced with going out the door, good or not.

The reality within is that no matter how the run turns out does not matter, we are going to move out after it. Good or not.  No matter what the limiting factors might be, as much as within us lay, we are going out to meet the run. Good or not.

No matter the factors which might limit... and they could be innumerable... the holistic distance runner sets themselves to express their fullness in every opportunity.  Mastership measured by the attention and detail given to all the areas of "us".  Attention to spiritual matters, attention to intellectual matters and attention to physical matters, have all ~ as a force of one ~ met us. 

Good or not the holistic distance runner wraps their strength around complete expressions in every opportunity.  Good or not. 

BEGINNING WITH THE END

Some are dinning in our ears that we are Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

I was thinking about the paradox of beginning with respects to impartation.  On one side of the coin; and with respects to the years we have developed and become who we are; we have so many beginnings ahead of us!  It stands to reason that if there is a beginning and an end to everything, each one signifies the other.  Here and now it is up to us to embrace both; beginnings and endings; with equal zeal and admiration. 

Right now beginnings are happening… impartations trickle in between us as smooth as a mountain brook… and endings.  Ending to how we once thought, felt or believed.  However, mental health demands that “beginnings”; with the possibilities they bring; maintain the majority of our thought life. 

As for “impartations”… this is actually a wonderful reality!  This transfer happens in every spiritual, social and physical interaction… hopefully positive, yet sometimes negatively.  We are imparting things into one another; ideas, inspirations, hope, peace, conquest and humor begin the list.  But it is our design and should be our ambition to be imparters!!

Cheers, HD Runners!

Time To Touch The Floor Again

Who could have known that life was as brief as a breath?  Or as strong as a gall force wind?

But we have tasted its soft passing, and are no longer on our feet!   ~ BH

It seems reasonable that life should have plenty of "WOWS!"  At the very least, a few "Wows!" every day if at all possible.  As a distant friend says, and I paraphrase, "One 'Wow!' make the rest icing on the cake."  The unpredictability of distance running accommodates this very well.  When we run to combine our own humanity, and the passion of our life; past present & future; there are very few distance runs which do not leave the soul with a "Wow!" -- if our eyes are open!  It is the "Wows" in life which take you off your feet!

I will try to share a brief of what can often be expected when you become a land runner... in many other regards, become an ultra distance runner at heart if not always in distance!  The expression of distance running has always been about the combination of our own humanity... our design as endurance creatures if you will.  We have always been this... Nomadic... travelers on foot... "Wow" seekers after little and big adventures.  Holistic wellness in many aspects demands the "Wows!".  This year land-running, I have had more 'Wows!' than runs with generous gatherings of items such as in the image above... "WOW!" 

I thought it might serve well to briefly describe the beautiful curiosity... The American Indian would have made any renaissance rock sculpture proud!  In and across the land I have been running, there are ancient treasures.  It seems endless "Wow!" moments reserved for the resilient, dedicated heart.  Little and large, multi-stone sculptures which do not perish and neither fade away!  My, my, MY!

When you cross their path, you cross the distance of millennials... in brief, the pieces above date approximately 6000BC - 1000BC... WOW!  Each one carried a healthy dose of honor and a beautiful charge of a connected life when it presented itself before me.  What I find I save from the crush of the plow, and preserve the posterity of their memory.  Little stone sculptures, otherwise known as "arrowheads"... the ONLY trace of a collected and beautiful race so far before us!  Wow!  Cheers all! 

 

Prospects of LIFE

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.

~ H.D. Thoreau

The holistic distance runner looks for new prospects every day.  Prospects of life in prospects of running... "rather something to be."  LIFE is here for us.  It seems to me that every day should be a vibrant tracing out of the vision we have for the expression of our life.  Here-in is the pause... a question we must ask ourselves... "How can I obtain and secure a vision which is who I am in order to pursue it?"

It is easier than many might think: Passionately seek, follow after and gather those things which interest you. Those things "closest to the bone"... work for them, and towards them, in study with the intention of a better humanity when you turn out.  The expression of YOU, within THIS pursuit, will be your visionary life!

The wonderful thing about distance running is that it allows the interests, the passions and the dearest things you know to melt together under the merits of effort and toil.  There... out in the air... we blend spirit, mind and body WITH these in the strength of a unified effort.  A new wine fermented with every effort! 

The established distance runner... prime from experience with themselves... has an avenue of inspiration which regularly restores their vision for life.  In these respects the indigenous... the nomadic... have had this avenue of vision far before us.  They have benefited from the expression of distance running as their travel was a result of the demand of their LIFE.  All that came with their efforts was accepted as natural... a by-product... just WHO they were/are.  Beautiful. 

Sometimes I wonder why modern man seems to think they NEED so much just to make their distance running a success?  We just need our own humanity.  Cheers, HD Runners! 

   

OUT CATCHING HUMANITY

Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations. ~ Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux Chief

This spectacular quote is from a race of humanity which then was at the pinnacle of their nature. Certainly, those who have survived as the generations of the Native American are no less noble, yet they have unjustly suffered the hand of poor government and the greed of modern man.  Their race of men left so much guiding richness of the way ‘of truth, honesty, generosity, equity and brotherhood’.  Still today, I am sure they strive for the effects of these principles.  Recently when I have been running in the wild, I have been out catching humanity… catching and collecting artifacts that have rested in this land through ages untold.  These are the last evidence of the Great Tribes and People who once knew the land as we strive to experience in distance running.

When I run, I am out catching their humanity because they did not simply enjoy nature and use it for the good of their families… they felt themselves to be a part of nature.  INDEED WE ARE!  We have always been an intimate part of the elemental experience, just as they knew so well for thousands of years.  However, we have found a course of life which ceases to demand of us the “need” to know and understand nature.  Now sadly nature has become foreign to modern man, and we associate “wildness” with evil and darkness, when “wildness” is the light of this world. 

As long distance runners we have been designed for the wildness the Native Americans knew so intimately.  In our modernity a famed writer even said, “In wildness is the preservation of the world”. (Thoreau)  So!  I often run off, catching humanity and the trace of these people under my feet!  I go out after their tools of provision, but more, after the representation of their lives.  Traces of their race left in stone to remind me.  I go out after the beauty of their nobility through the soil and through the waters, after the principles of their people.  I go with the hope of understanding their nomadic life with my own feet and motion.  I go hoping to catch a glimpse of the way they merged with the earth, flowed with the water and rode the wind.

Through my running days in wind, rain, cold and heat, I wonder… what did they see different through their eyes in these passing millennium?  How did they feel differently covering miles just as I?  They ran because it was who they were, and what they needed… they gathered, hunted and lived in love.  They understood the brevity of life, when we have been the ones who TRY to make it last forever.  

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath
of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across
the grass and loses itself in the sunset.  ~ Eagle Chief (Letakos-Lesa) Pawnee

We run their land!  RUN FOR SOMETHING!   Cheers, HD Runners!