ANCIENT DAYS, RUNNING WAYS

An Oglala Sioux named Brooke Medicine Eagle once said, “Being Indian is an attitude, a state of mind, a way of being in harmony with all things and all beings. It is allowing the heart to be the distributor of energy on this planet; to allow feelings and sensitivities to determine where energy goes; bringing aliveness up from the Earth and from the Sky, putting it in and giving it out from the heart.”   It seems there is now no question at all of our ambition as long distance runners seems to revolve around these thoughts.

It would be safe to say that through recent days I have been thinking about what people; such as you and I; were up to on the same land we run.  That is, what the people of ancient days were up to, and how they lived.  I wonder how their need which circled around a nomadic lifestyle has translated through time to the need which exists within our own distance running blood.  Efficiency has never been something new, and never been something which has gone out of style.  The items above are items I have recently found while running in woodland near my home!

Artifacts, such as these, fuel an internal fire to unify my nomadic design… to explore our commonality as human beings.  Even more than finding these historic “tools”, the very knowledge of their location and the evidence of Native American being, thrusts my consciousness into a shared existence as I run through the NC woodland. 

The land you and I run, and the earth we cover, has always been shared… or should have been.  The land we know was well set with human life and design far before this post-modern society now.  These people were in every respect, just as we are… possibly much more simple.  Tribes were nomadic and traveling long distances afoot was second nature.  They were loving, caring, industrious, creative, noble and intelligent.  Here in the States they were the Native Americans… and they were long distance runners! 

Now I run better through these woods I know and through the trails I sift along.  For these people have been here before I.  They were under our feet before we acknowledge them, and lived with such great effect!  They had balance and order and passion for life as they lived it.  They even had true and noble example for post-modern man.  Yes, they had no industry, no “might" and possessed no technology in comparison… yet these are NOT they which make a man!

A man is made beautiful by his own expression of living and NEVER by the greatness of his possessions.   

So, let’s remember together the feet which have run the land we run and the lives that have passed this way before us.  Together we can embrace the humility required to explore and admire the expression of their lives… if for only one reason: they found the essence to sustain their lives and culture, with beautiful balance and surviving order, for multiplied thousands of years!  In contrast, we have now ourselves to face most dire struggle, disunity, human despair,  unrestrained hatred and greed… all in the modern space of two to three hundred years!  Ouch!

There is something great to be gained in the study of good peoples’ lives.  Running this land, as the Native Americans did, is my beginning.  Distance running is a celebration of our primitive design.  Doing so with heart and thought… with empathy… is an enhancement to our humanity.  Now go and cover your land with joy and with LIFE!