Though this may not sound like an outstanding feat, it was perhaps one of the most challenging things I have done in my life. I can (or could) run faster and farther than anyone, work harder, be able to think at a higher level, and practice practice my way to achieving most things. But, no amount of hard work and willpower can enable you to stand on a yoga mat and look your students in the eye; feel where their energy is; intuit what pieces of the puzzle to pull from to make a positive shared space. Teaching yoga is not teaching an exercise class. Teaching yoga is not putting on a performance for students – about how good your poses are or what type of class you want to lead and especially not what type of person you want to be. The costume comes off and you must stand there naked, fully embodying your true self in order to connect with the others in the room. If there is anything other than authenticity present, it is like putting up a wall in the flow of energy, also known as “prana”, that is the essence of yoga. Yoga literally means union.

I rely on my critical thinking skills to cover up my inability share a space of feeling with another. I rely on my physical skills and resume line items to cover up any insecurity I have about what lies beneath those layers. Yet, how is one to find the oneness, the union that exists between everyone and everything in every moment if one does not sink down from the head to the heart, from the wave into the ocean below.

Kripalu means compassion in Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the world’s oldest language. It is said that Sanskrit words, when spoken, send sound waves equal to the word being said. Thus, if you say Kripalu right now, sound vibrations of compassion are sent out into the space around you. Similarly “Om” is considered the universal sound and the sound that existing at the beginning of creation. Compassion is in everything at Kripalu. With so many parts of my life stripped away here, I have been able to focus in on the more subtle aspects of life, my life, these days. The green seems greener. I sit down and eat my food at a table and chew my food and just eat. The food tastes different. Placing my awareness on my breath is an experience that is different with every inhale and exhale. I have been missing out on the nuances of life for a very long time. An intriguing conversation allowed to linger; the time to meditate under a hidden spot under an unassuming but wondrous tree; watching two bright rainbows after a late day shower until they dissipated. Single-minded focus in the now- the key to seeing life as it really is?

In this race to figure out what is true and what is real and why are we here and what is my purpose- is taking in as many experiences as possible really bringing me closer to myself and the answers to these questions? What if all of life is contained in any one moment? If we could only widen our perception, our connection, our experience and our inquiry into it the present. I almost wrote “less is more”, but I am not sure that it is really even less. Yes, things are more simple – on the exterior- but infinity is found in a single leaf bringing it to the smallest detail or backing up to see its place in the universe.  Similarly, self-observation can be treated with the same attention and non-judgmental “looking”.

Standing on the yoga mat today, I felt a greater sense of who I am. What do I have to offer to others in a way that genuinely exudes my Self, my energy to them? Can I be open in my heart to give what I have to others? Perhaps harder, can I receive what they have to offer me? If the universe is contained in a single leaf, what could exist between two people? I have been in awe of the connection that can be made when everything drops away and people are just being who they are.

So who am I? I did not know that I could be creative, but that was what my students said first about the yoga class I led. I remain a visual learner and struggle with auditory processing, a challenge that shines through as I try to direct others in complex poses. I am spontaneous when I do not have the responsibilities that require me to structure my life. I exist in my inner world but see more clearly that I would like to bring that world out into a shared space with others – and just not those close to me. I enjoy a walk on a whim having a whimsical conversation. I am a listener. I can dance. I can breathe deeply and laugh. I am capable of feeling the energy of others when I turn down my own mind chatter. I can let the weight of the world’s worries be a coat that I can take off.  With a lighter load I can maintain a positive outlook, a “beginner’s mind, a curiosity, an interest in sensing the world as it is now. Much to my surprise, the world has continued without my wearing of this coat. Removing my card from the card-house structures I am a part of [insert all VERY important commitment here] has not caused any of them to fall down. I can listen to my body and can feel hungry and tired and energized and healthy and sad and joyous. Joy through the sadness. Love beyond the conditional, changing likes and dislikes.  ALIVE.

-          This sentence summarizes all of yoga and maybe all of life

• Now- the present. Every moment. The only place where life exists.
• Inquiry- the examination and exploration into the unknown
• Yoga- union
  • Union of the embodied self and the “true self”, the conscious and unconscious, the self in it our body, mind and spirit, the self and others, the self and the divine, the self and the natural world

-          Patajali’s sutras are one of only two texts directly addressing yoga, the other being the Gita. However, these texts are quite old- 2,000-2,500 ago for the sutras and 5,000 or so for the Gita.

What is yoga?

(many definitions- here are two)

-          Yoga = the study of life forces

-          Yoga = skillfulness in action. There are four dimensions to which spiritual action must be applied- you/ others/ life/ and spirit.

-          Yoga= all prana (life energy)-movement done with awareness and devotion

• Ex. Walking on the beach and breathing in the salt water, noticing a wave coming to the shore and appreciate it for its uniqueness and appreciate it as just a manifestation of the same water at any given time.

A list of quotes that have resonated with me as I end my first week:

Authenticity

-          When what we think, fell, say, and do are in alignment. If skillful action is applied to each in an aligned manner- energy flows as if through a hose. If anyone is not congruent, the hose gets kinked. A kinked hose not only take away potential energy but backflows energy and/or forces it out in some other way- towards someone else, inwards to our unconscious etc.

The unconscious

-          “We are committed to the status quo of our unconscious”

-          “Conscious intentions rooted in goodness usually lead to good results. But the unconscious mind is more determinant of results than the conscious”

-          “We never meet anyone or experience anything other than our unconscious. The world does now unfold before us randomly”

The path

-          “We are always on the path to becoming the opposites “

Change

-          “You cannot change a part of who you are until you generate levels of energy in life equal to the energies in play for when the experience happened that made you the way you currently are”

-          1- hold self accountable for actions, 2- be open to experience that unfold in the present moment, 3- learn from the good and the bad/ the success and failures, 4- energy is created or redirected, 5- change occurs

“The difficulty is in the simplicity”

“Before speaking, consider whether it is an improvement on silence.”

“Lead me from the unreal to the real.
From darkness to light.
From death to immortality”

I went on a run today and the shades of green were 100 times more in their nuances than in Carrboro. For each tree, I would add about 100 years to its life from the typical tree in Carrboro. The fog over the lake in the morning, the brown prairie fields swaying in the wind, the mountains around, the lives that have come in and out of and lived in this building……

Last night in our evening session we did our first round of Mala beads. We were each given a set of these ancient Indian beads. There are 108 beads made of rose wood separated by red knots between each. The Mala beads are very similar to the rosary ( a similarity which is not coincidence- there are 54 beads on a rosary and list of significances of the number 108 goes on). For each bead, ones says:

“Om Namo Bhavadah Shiva” which means

“ I” – my “self” in union with my self as part of the universal one- “bows down before the divine light of consciousness, god of all gods”

It takes only about 10 minutes or so to say the phrase 108 times once you get it down. This mantra is just one form of meditating. It is in the category of focusing the mind on something else so it gets distracted from its chattering and the soul and find peace and clarity.

For the phrase to be firmly locked in the unconscious and thus always with us to keep the “small” mind quiet, it must be said 1 lock and 1 quarter times. I lock is 108,000 times going around the Mala once. Which means 108,000 X 108 (in each Mala) X 0.25 (the additional quarter)- translating into staying the phrase 14,580,000 times. Our teacher has done this quote “many” times over. Wow. In fact, when the building was first bought and painted, Devarshi- one of our two teachers- was on the paint crew and during the year or two it took them to paint they chanted the phrase and calculated the number said in an hour and the number of hours. The painting was completed just around finishing the lock and a quarter. And thus, the cement structure of the building itself is lined in the uttering of these words millions of times. See if that doesn’t turn your mind around a couple times.

Today we learned how to do a pose called “mountain”. The mountain pose is quite literally standing. Just standing on the earth. We learned it for two hours and the teachers finally had to stop the discussion and questions that just kept flowing.

Tonight, we met one of the founders of Kripalu who spoke about Swami Kripalu, the guru inspired the disciplines such as Alta, this women who spoke tonight, to name the yoga center as such. He meditated for 10 hours a day and didn’t speak for 12 years.

But, to speak in only these extremes would not represent the very balanced and routine lifestyle I have already settled into and the degree of lightness and fun we are having.

In yoga this afternoon (second of the day) – we had a teacher doing flow yoga and we were all getting our butts kicked, exhausted already from days of sitting on meditation cushions for 7 hours buttressed by two 1 ½ hour yoga classes today. We all had a sense of dread upon hearing this. Ha. And yes, it was hard but right in the middle of it all we stopped and did this “fire building” set of poses that focus and concentrate energy around your core. Do this for about 5 minutes and you can feel the heat and energy just ready to be released. It all seemed very intense. And then all of the sudden, the music changes and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” comes on and we all start dancing. For 6 ½ minutes we all just went crazy dancing – some yoga dancing, some modern, some more hip hop, some people on the floor some jumping up and down, all in a big enmeshed mass having the time of our lives- laughing and being ourselves and feeling so free. She had created the space to draw out the inner dancer in all of us.

I am in awe of this place and of yoga….

Next: The first yoga sutra and 3 sandwiches a day

The four of us will be in a group together the first 1/3 of the training. The first exercise we had to do as a group was to make a name for our group with an accompanying visual symbol. We had 3 minutes to do this.
Within this short time frame we figured out that we could support each other to maintain this very difficult pose by balancing each other’s efforts against our own. We pointed our feet in making a center of 8 feet. Each person supported someone else’s foot and then had their own foot supported by someone else. Our backs and outstretched arms formed the boundaries of our groups circle. We joined hands and were able to lean back by pulling on the others hands. This took all effort away from the core to hold up each person’s upper body while sitting on just your “sitting bones” and instead added an extra arm stretch.
We called ourselves Vishnu boat. Vishnu is one of three main Hindu gods. There is:
- Brahma, the creator
- Shiva, the transformer
- Vishnu, the sustainer

Our teachers told us that to make it through the month we should focus our energy on Vishnu if we are to make it through the month. Creating, transforming and destroying would be natural byproducts of the training that would be integrated into our being by the compassion, love, self-reflection and commitment – the definition of sustain and the defining characteristics of Vishnu.

A perfect name for our group and for what I hope to achieve in my connections with others- in boat formations and in all other iterations of life. Because of our formation, our boat could not only hold us up, we discussed among us, but would form a structure for upholding our students (once we become teachers) as they ebb and flow in the ocean of life.

The obvious irony here of course is “sustain” is a word I have tattooed on my wrist and my mouth has verbalized probably 10 times a day this past year. There a suggestion of the group to called it the Sustain boat. But I quickly said that we should go with Vishnu (shaking my head inside).

The second irony is that the first exercise the entire class did in our first day together was sit in a large circle and each person said:
- Their first name
- Where they were from
- And the title of their “book”
I was praying that they would start going around the circle the other direction as I was seated right next to the teacher, but no, it came to me first. The name of my “book” . No context given of course. No guidance such as an example, or your life thus far, your intentions for the month, a book that you might write. Just book name.

I honestly was blank and even if I had had time to use my logical reasoning skills to put something together I don’t think it would have helped. So, after I said “Carrboro” it just sort of came out of me:

“ Sea Dweller; Wave Rider”

Upon later reflection, I am not sure if I could have come up with anything that better presents my life, especially as we have talked more about the ocean, the tides, waves- the peaks and the gaps in between.
So then to have my group form a boat referring to the sea and support others dwelling in it and attempting to paddle through the chaos and not miss the “pop up” for the rare joyful rides- well, it all fits in perfectly.
I just smiled.

-          Each of these things- not any one of them- but all together

• Having to finalize my plan for the next two years with the PhD in Health Policy and Management and the MA in Medical Anthropology directors
• Starting a new Fellowship with two demanding but incredible projects. In this sort of a job, your first “big” job/opportunity, 30 hours does not mean 30 hours. It means getting dressed up in the morning, an hour long commute each day, and working more than 30 hours. Working whatever it takes to finish the various projects assigned to you, or that you think are assigned to a degree of quality to which they expect or you think they expect. A lot of wading through the unknown, small administrative details, and big ones- like almost losing my fellowship
• Mentoring Sustain Foundation’s Operating Director such that I could step down as Executive Director and leave the program in such a way that I believe it will be a “sustainable entity”. Maura is someone I trust enough to pour out the library in my mind of passwords, and “to dos” that are ongoing, people and their “story”, how to manage the website, the finances and legal aspects of Sustain Foundation etc. I think I learned a lot from the experience of sharing this entity that I (and others) have built because I did not realize the immensity of it and how much of it I uniquely knew until I had to explain it to another. I think we were both a little taken aback.
  • So, within mentoring Maura there has been setting up a Fellowship for the position for the next years
  • Creating the Sakina Health Evaluation and monitoring our volunteer in  Sakina, Anneliese
  • Coaching Team Sakina, which has become smaller in size but larger in commitment – time and effort and meaning
  • And I could go on about Sustain. The bottom line is that I see Sustain Foundation as just beginning but my role, or the extent to which it had grown, as ending.
• Random things and the bureaucracy of our society:
  • An ear infection turned facial infection that took me out for about a week
  • An expired drivers license that I’d gotten away with for too long just to get a ticket for turning right on red AND my expired license, AND expired registration. Then, within the same week having my car break down but not be able to rent a car because of the expired license. Having to go to the DMV 3 times to take the test until the line seemed somewhat reasonable and still wait about 2 hours the day before I was supposed to leave.
• Spending a quality weekend with my mom and my dad at the beach.

Ha, and the thing is though- that was just the preparing to leave, not the preparing to arrive. I had this idea in my head that I wanted to check the leave behind things as done on the list before looking forward or I would not be able to stay focused and finish strong such that I really could leave for 7 weeks. But, that “day” when the shift would happen kept getting pushed back. Until it was 2-3 days before.

I am embarking on a 6 ½ week journey. The first 4 weeks will be spent at Kripalu doing a 200 hour yoga teacher training certification. The second part of the journey is still undecided and spans the entirety of the spectrum in terms of what I might do. So, I have two piles at my house based on which I choose and my parents will send up whichever I do.

I have a lot of reading to do about Olympic National Park in Washington if I am to hike the 60 or so miles of beach along the coast of this temperate rainforest for 16 days- solo. I have been in awe of this place since I first hear of it- an infatuation of sorts. Dr. Spanos gave me a crash course in camping and allowed me to borrow his camping gear. I friend went with me the Saturday afternoon before I left Sunday morning to buy the rest of what I’d need. I also have books on the park that I’ll need to read if I go there and have more information to even make the decision.

Or, I might go to Mexico instead. I could have a very different experience surfing and reading in hammocks and trying Oaxaca state part #2 (can’t lose your appendix twice). I would have an established place to be and person to travel with. From what I hear, the sunrises are spectacular as well as the surf, the food and the culture.

Nomadic and solo and walking and rain and old growth forests or renewing a set place to go- a friend and place to live and surfing  and reading and sunny and hot and clear ocean water……….

For now, I am at Kripalu. A brief overview: Kripalu is in Western Massachusetts in the Berkshire Mountains. It is one of the oldest and most respected yoga and healing arts retreat centers. I flew into Albany and the drive here is similar to other rural places I have seen in the NE- rolling hills, green, quaint old and small towns. It is a different kind of rural. However, I doubt I will see much of that. Now at Kripalu, the schedule and the setting here is enough to keep me occupied for much more than my time allotted here.

300 acres of forest with a large lake and miles and miles of trails surround what used to be an old Jesuit Monastery. It is serene and peaceful and quiet and the perfect temperature. There are a couple hundred people here but you would never know. There are people from around the world, just in my training which is one of many events going on here concurrently (most are shorter ranging from gluten free cooking to “finding the silence to hear your small voice within”.  I live in a dorm with about 20 women and have a bottom bunk with a large window overlooking the grassy field that goes down to the lake and then up to the mountains. The place is clean and – not upscale- but appropriate for all needs. It just makes sense. There is a large buffet dining hall, large program rooms where we spend all of our time, a small internet café and shop, a larger outdoor terrace with tables and individual chairs. Trails lead into the mountains or down to the lake or to a labyrinth for walking meditation. There is a room on the 4^th floor for silent reading that is entirely glass and overlooks the lake. Breakfast is silent and lunch and dinner have rooms for those who want to eat in silence.

I am mentioning silence a lot because that is the way it is. People do not seem here to talk or be social – unlike any other place I’ve been where people are together in such a small setting (our dorm room for example). There is an atmosphere of respect and reverence for one another and the space. It is clear people are here for diverse reasons and so the default is to accommodate everyone by being peaceful and logical, natural beauty for the senses to complement the inward direction of the yoga training, and set guidelines to make things clear as well as everything you could ever want to have the experience that I think we are all looking for, or at least I am.

The schedule (having only been here for a day and ½) is:

-          5:30am- wakeup

-          6:30- 8am- yoga

-          8am- 9am- breakfast

-          9am- 11:30am- “program session”

-          11:30- 1:30- lunch and break

-          1:30pm – 4pm- “program session”

-          4:15-6:00- yoga

-          6:00-7:30 – dinner

-          7:30- 9:00- “program session” about ½ of the nights

-          9:30 all overhead lights in the dorm out and by 10pm all reading lights out (I have snuck away to the café to write this even though I could have gone to bed at 7pm honestly)

It is a rigorous schedule that demands attention and brings you to the present. The rest of the world seems very far away. Yet it is on my mind all of the time – but in more of a process way than a day to day need to do this and that way. It will be a month of reflecting and a journey inward. I am already a different person.

I have many more things to tell and my posts will be shorter. I’ll write a bit more on the overall structure and then try to speak to specific interesting stories or happenings or insights. Less broad updating. But, I wanted to get everyone on the same page so that I could begin to share my experiences here in context.

I really do have very little time, energy or capability to correspond. Cell phones are not allowed on the grounds so I have to walk away to turn my cell phone on. There is an internet café but not conducive to accomplishing much because it would be missing the experience, this rare time and setting and space I have carved out that has been paired with all I hoped Kripalu would be. Thus, I will update the blog, correspond with my mom/dad, Maura and Anneliese on Saturdays and then if possible write personal brief emails. I do plan to post to my blog every day or every other day.

I can receive mail send this way:

Kripalu Center

200 hr Yoga Teacher Training
Patricia Kerry Brewer
PO Box 309
Stockbridge, MA 01262

Letters and packages welcome!

More soon: Next Entry- “Vishnu boat”

so it seems apt to write from this still place, that everything in my life seems to be changing.

i have started my fellowship at a international global health ngo.

i submitted my first 75,000 grant and am a part of a team working on a 1.5 million dollar NIH grant.

sustain has an intern arriving in Sakina for the summer arriving tomorrow. 4 years after my arrival in the same village, i have formed a 501c3 non-profit that now funds 2 part time coordinators in the village and together they will conduct a health needs assessment because 4 years ago i was surrounded by sick children and no one was helping them. there is a 75 page data protocol manual i sent out last week.

i am writing the role, eligibility and application for a Fellowship fully funded by a kind team sakina participant to pay someone to work my job for Sustain.

and thus, i am stepping down from being executive director of the organization one week minus 35 minutes from today.

i am leaving soon for kripalu. i have never been to massachusetts. i have never been to a retreat center. i cannot imagine what it will be like to be at a the formost center for yoga teacher trainings in the middle of a 700 acre forest.

i am learning about camping – what to buy and where to go and what to do.

unless 2 people in this world make decisions otherwise, I will be going to Olympic national park to camp by myself along the 73 mile stretch of ocean at the edge of the world’s only temperate rainforest.

i have never backpacked by myself. i have only backpacked once.

a 7 week journey awaits.

my absence for the trip will ripple outwards affecting how sustain and other involvements of mine will proceed, certainly different from if i were there.

yet, at my return, that space will be free and open for me to re-enter. hopefully in a new, more balanced way.

i hope to step away from my life here for a while. it has been 3 years since i went on a solo journey. the wanderer in me was found in tanzania, solidified in thailand and then hidden by an illness for 3 years.

but the wanderer adventurer is welling up from deep inside of me. i can feel it in my beating heart. this need to leave and experience and travel and be present – at kripalu- to the space, the people and the inward journey- at Olypmic- to reconnecting with nature and find peace and balance and most of all – quiet and stillness.

so much has changed over the last month and there is so much more to come. so much uncertainty.

-what will happen to sustain when i step down?
-what are we doing in Sakina- will we be able to change peoples lives for the better?

-my best friend came into town for a night, a glimpse back at 3 years spent together most everyday that we lived near each other. and now gone back to DC. will we every find that small community we dreamed of in so many late night conversations where we can be with those we love?
- the person i lived with for almost 6 months is on his own journey. i have not talked to him in any real way since he left. what role will he play in my life. will my love for him fade? will he find me again?
- the person who perhaps knows me best in this world has taken me by surprise – has left my side to explore romance with another. though certainly deserved by me, i am hurt and and left with the hurt that i caused him.

-my heart feels severed from those i love and our separate journeys. will we ever walk side by side through life?

- what is the destiny of those who we feel are meant to play a role in our life? will what will be be? or are coincidences more than chance? are we to take control over what we feel for another- and by control do we force it into the back of our mind or oppositely harness it and fight for those we love and the way things “are supposed to be”.

but what is “supposed to be” when everything is changing.

or, if time is not linear and love eternal, then everything that we will ever be is already happening now, all at once, yet forever changing.

the ultimate paradox.

it seems paralyzing.

and so, a paradoxical person, i will move forward along my path, a drumbeat that perhaps is not meant to be in rhythm with another, or others in general. i seek: peace, happiness, health, and truth. in my life i only wish: to see the world, to live simply, to share my life with another, and give my life to the service of others.

i give myself to the passing of time, shrugging off the weight of the scales i carry, and journey to a place unknown. it is exciting and scary, lonely but each moment so full, joyous and sad, an end and a beginning.

all opposites are different sides of the same stick.

and so i prepare, these next 2 weeks, to grab the stick and go.

Thus, no posts. But, I am energized by what I am doing as I love – well- most all of the things in my life right now honestly. They give me energy and that is always a good sign of something to “keep”

That said, a weekend at the beach with the ocean, sunsets, reading and sleep is on the horizon. As well as some posts on the many thoughts bottling up in my head over the week….

Years later, years of chronic illness and not running later, I think back on that time and see that the stillness I felt was not a highened consciousness witnessing myself in the moving world but rather that I was more in it that ever, just succeeding in being in the front – like the having my arms out at the front of a moving train- such that I was able to be present in the world- turning with it.

However, through the minutes, hours, days, months, years of forced stillness. Not being able to run away from my problems, not being able to use running to find that place in myself where I could calmly abide and “figure it out”. I had to just sit there in the midst of it all and let it blow through me.  The plummeling of the world and the circumstances it presented to me in my period of immense physical suffering changed me forever. Unlike the person who goes voluntarily to meditate on Sunday mornings at the Zen Center, I had no choice, no control, no agency. I was forced by the force that was constantly upon me to find out new ways to find peace in uncertainty, in change.

At some point, after much fighting and mourning, I stopped. I turned to face it- my body, my mind, the present moment which I hated and had tried to avoid. I just stood there. That was really the only choice I had.  To stand and have trust in myself that I had the inner strength to hold on as I ran- not away from myself but mentally back through my being until I found somewhere that I could “be”.  This was a long and very uncomfortable process. But finally,  I do not remember a specific day or event, though I don’t think it was really gradually either.

It was just like I had found the eye of the storm. I stood in the middle and it all turned around me. I looked at it and experienced it.

Perhaps I had found what TS Eliot called “the still point of the turning world”. The place from which then you have found freedom. You are liberated from the suffering of being wrapped up in the noisy day to day.

His idea is that from there – once you find it- you can do anything but act from that still place. He speaks of dancing. I think of running.

Today I went for a run a Mason Farms. Now that I can run again, it’s hard to explain the experience, the joy, the fascination. As I have been able to do more and more I have tried to hold on to the still place that I had found that didn’t require my running, filling my days with busyness, moving moving moving. Or that I was now capable of being busy with school and work, or going for a run, or insert anything here- but all from this “still point”. A place where some part of my soul stood as I moved and witnessed me and myself as a part of the turning.

It was about 6am and there was a dense fog, a cloud day about 67 degrees. Perfect for running. No one else there. The fields were in bloom with a thousand white flowers. The suns rays attenuated by the fog came through the old oak trees on the back side of the loop. I thought to myself- this is it- I am not running away. I am just running. Finally- I have been given the gift of a second chance to run and to do so from a place of peace and non-attachment of stillness within me while my legs moved through the forest. And I thought about the post I would write about this.

And then, just then, the deer fly came. The “woolly adeglid” (see Unmovable mountains post for explanation) of trail running in NC in the summer. It began its characteristic chase and continual attack on my head.  The deer fly catches you and once you are caught it followed and just keeps trying to bite your head. 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10. Nothing shakes it- not running faster or walking or standing still.  I could just feel myself getting angry- this stupid fly messing up my peaceful run.

I did what I always do and took my hat off and started whirling it in circles around my head as I ran. I was relentless today. And I was definitely no experience non-judgment. I was mad. Mad because my runs are such cherished times. Mad because I am not yet unshakable.  Mad because I have this new expectation for myself- that I should be able to be this person who has been through it all and back and now can handle anything. I can’t even handle a flying insect with the lifespan of a day.

I am still human. I am not perfect. I will strive to find this still point while also being a person acting in the world. It is much harder than when I had no choice but to do so.

Life is a learning experience every moment- if we are conscious of it as such.

And so I run and I seek peace and I hope to just be aware- to be there. Deer fly- one day I will not care about you. You will not matter. You beat me today. Let’s see about tomorrow.

soundtrack of my life right now- Mono’s “Hymn to the Immortal Wind”. Literally sounds like a soundtrack and is a soundtrack (as the inside cover has words – the first time Mono “speaks”). It also sounds very much like I image the soundtrack to “The Neverending Story” movie, 2009 version.

morning transportation- I40 driving replaces bike rides

food- dried mango, sprouts, vodka pasta sauce

mental image- rivers

place i feel drawn to- mountains, specifically linville gorge

on my mind- camping, camping gear, and a 10 day trail hike

tv show- lost season 5 (wow). required prerequisite to any tv show following: Six Feet Under.

movie- The Fountain

book- The Foundtainhead by Ayn Rand

new book- the Sun’s publication “The Mysterious Life of the Heart” and the Sun magazine in general

poet- TS Eliot, especially Little Gidding

my body- sticky shoulders, stupid left knee

home- quiet and the white noise of the fan.

dreams- Thailand

clothes- business causal?

evening activity- new tuesday evening yoga study group meeting at my house

missing- someone to play frisbee golf with, Logan, my families abroad, sitting down to eat dinners at my table with Matt (to name a few)

looking ahead to- Kripalu, starting my PhD and trying out anthropology, trips with my mom

finally- late sunsets, warm nights, fabulous farmer’s markets

Guess we’ll have to just have to keep building our mileage until we can say we’ve crossed the length of the ocean in our support for Sakina……..

running. running. running.