When I first started running about five and a half years ago, I never expected that it would become such a part of my weekly life and that I'd still be doing it years later. I never enjoyed it in school and figured I'd never do it again afterward, but thanks to a little inspiration from someone close to me, I tried it in the confines of a gym, then took it outside, and never looked back. I've had my ups and downs as a runner since then, but have seen it through and have been richly rewarded for it in mind, body, and spirit.

One thing I certainly never envisioned in those early days was willingly waking up early and going out in freezing temperatures to run around in cold winds and snow. Winter's always been the most difficult time for me to be consistent about running; after a long day at work or a too-short night's sleep, the idea of such discomfort can be daunting. It's been far and away the most irregular time of year for my running, and will probably always be so.

But after a break over the holidays, I've been getting back to it and have been pretty regular about it, despite the roller-coaster weather we've been having. (Finding some great thinly-woven wool layers to wear has helped.) And, as I do with each other season, I find something magical about the experience that makes the rigmarole worthwhile.

Last Friday was an excellent example. We'd had a snowfall the night before, just enough to blanket the landscape with a few inches but not enough to require, say, snowshoes, grappling hooks, or flare guns. After leaving work, I headed out to the trail as the sun was starting to settle into the horizon. The trail was deserted and quiet in the way that's only possible with snow--a gently muffled hush. Under my feet, the snow was soft yet supportive, a firm bed that felt luxurious to move across even as it required a bit more from legs to move through it.

That wonderful paradox continued throughout the run, as my eyes were dazzled by the rolling, snowy cloud-covered bluffs and forests around me and my mind and imagination fired by the alternating audiobook and music filtering through my rigged-up earmuff/headphone combo. Initial chill turned to internal warmth as the miles slowly slipped by, and the added difficulty of breathing the cold air was a wonderfully alive feeling. As I progressed, all these components merged into one experience of striving, heaving, frolicking, exploring, and just being.

Toward the end of my run, rather than wearing down, I felt a delicious surge of energy and strength in my legs--a thank-you of sorts for the forgiving snowy running surface, perhaps--and finished at a good, strong pace. Though a shorter run than what I might peak at in warm weather, the feeling of satisfaction after navigating those wintry elements is second to none, and what at first seemed like adversarial conditions soon became friendly, generous, and awakening.

I'm grateful for these moments, and the ready availability of a different physical, emotional, and spiritual journey every time I look over at those running shoes and decide that okay, it's time to pull them on and go.

Labels: Ruminations, Running

There's been much public debate over the ideas of intelligent design and creationism, but much less discussion about the implications of those concepts in the real world.

If the presence of interconnectedness at all levels in the world--from parallels in shapes and functions of natural objects to the harmonious, perfectly balanced ways in which animals, plants, and environment all complement each other and naturally produce what the others need--implies a being of perfect wisdom and grace behind it;

Then what does the casual disregard for the small things, willful destruction of the natural creatures that are in such perfect balance, and the ongoing, large-scale disruption of the natural ecology for the sake of material gain imply about those who are behind it? Perhaps the opposite of wisdom and grace? By choosing selfishness and greed and violence over the divine that's all around us, do the religious of this world show willful ignorance of and disregard toward the purpose of this designed world?

According to most modern religion, humankind was given dominion over the world and its contents. But does it make any kind of sense at all that such a meticulously crafted, carefully balanced, nuanced and interrelated system of organisms would be created, with that level of care and harmony, simply for the purpose of being pushed aside, lumped together in an indistinguishable mass, and used as raw fuel for human consumption? Does it make any sense at all that the divine purpose of, say, a forest--with its immense richness of life and diversity of natural functions--would be to simply be bulldozed and paved over, a use which in no way acknowledges or uses its complex structure and design?

In what type of rational thought does "dominion" mean utter destruction? What would be the divine wisdom in creating natural systems of such profoundly complex functioning and potential if their purpose is to simply be clubbed, cut, or mown down and turned into pure energy for human wants that far exceed our needs for survival? What type of religious thought can put forth, for example, that the spectacularly, overwhelmingly complex construction and relationship with its environment of a large mammal suggests its use as a leather seat in a luxury SUV?

I've long wondered if this concept of "dominion" is not the blank check that many religious people seem to think it is--a license to behave in any way they like toward Nature--but rather a test, a challenge to see if mankind can be wise and reverent enough to truly care for the natural world, to use what it needs to in order to survive, but also to live in harmony with the beauty and inherent, separate purposes of everything around us.

The notion of dominion that has taken hold over the centuries is a blunt, barbaric, willfully ignorant sort. If your best friend gave you their dog, would you treat it the way animals are treated in the meat industry, and then devour it? Then why devour such a greater gift as the Earth for so little reason, for the establishment of a great Man-Empire, with its myriad temples of avarice and sweeping fields of concrete, its command to consume and purchase instead of caring for what we've been given? In the guise of divine instruction, we've built Babel to worship Mammon--our actions prove it, regardless of our words.

Intelligent design and creationism expressly put the hand of the divine into the smallest detail and nuanced interrelation of the natural world. That humanity is so willing to carelessly destroy such wonderfully complex things without caring to think about or understand that balance, or to even consider its purpose and the danger of such destruction, suggests a monstrous greed and savagery in this supposed most-favored, enlightened creation.

Labels: Culture, Ruminations

Reading recently about the book The Trap and the film Sicko got me thinking about the kind of freedom we have in this country, and some of the small and large manifestations of it I've been noting lately.

There's an enormous amount of wealth being generated in this country, an unprecedented amount. And at the root of it is not the much-vaunted wealthy investors and entrepreneurs, but the incredible sum total of productivity by average workers. And with all this productivity and wealth, where is the average American left? Spending their lives in fear and doubt about being able to live into old age without starving or not being cared for. Wondering whether they'll be able to afford proper care and education for their children. Hoping they or their loved ones don't get sick or hurt, because they don't have insurance or the right insurance. Working for years just to pay off debt from their own education.

Is this the America we want?

I'm not talking about an alternative such as pure socialism or communism. Obviously, capitalism creates a great deal of money and possibilities. But instead of raising the overall level of society, it seems that too much of that energy is simply turned into more fuel for reaching ever-higher peaks of wealth for the benefit of a shrinking few. Our society has given itself to the capitalist system, but capitalism is forgotting to give back to the vast majority of citizens.

The point isn't that everyone should be equally rich, that no one should have to work, that no one should have less than anyone else. That's a fantasy. The point is that in this country, which is supposed to be based on ideals of freedom and Christianity, it's simply wrong for the majority of the country to live in fear and doubt about the most basic of human needs--health, education, and shelter. In the long term, the economy wouldn't skip a beat if we as a nation decided that health care and education should be free. If anything, the shock to the economy would be a healthy, reality-based adjustment. And the resulting workers would be happier, healthier, and better able to realize the liberty and pursuit of happiness we like to believe is our ideal, furthering the independent, inventive spirit that we like to hold as a uniquely American trait.

(Could it be that this is not the actual ideal aspired to by those running our economic machine?)

So if someone wants to be wealthy and avaricious at the expense of others, so be it. But let it be within an overall civic system that puts the basic needs of people first--let it be after they help subsidize the basic necessities of the millions of people who are actually responsible for their wealth. Beyond those basic needs, let capitalism be the cold, winner-takes-all bloodsport that conservatives seem to revel in and defend so much. But let's just set aside enough, compel enough contribution from our overflowing coffers of wealth, to relieve that suffering and remove the obstacles to opportunity. We don't have to pay for anyone's dream or ideal life--we just have to be decent.

Now, as to our free society:

We can own .50 caliber tank-piercing rifles for personal use, but in many places (such as my own state) we can't choose how to birth our own children (with midwives), we can't buy or sell raw milk without navigating absurd legal tangles, we can't grow a fabulously versatile crop (hemp) that would create vast amounts of wealth for farmers, we can't breast-feed a child in public. Our notions of freedom are curiously skewed toward the big winners in the capitalist scheme, and curiously harsh toward the average individual. Advantages are piled upon advantages, freedoms upon freedoms, so that if you can't climb the initial rungs of the greed ladder, you're left out.

Corporations can pollute every body of water in the country to the point that most water found in nature is dangerous to drink, and they can manufacture plastic products which leave chemicals of unknown safety in every single citizen's body, and they can genetically modify seed and food in ways whose safety is unknown and market it to the public, all without accountability. But if someone wants to sell the milk from their cow to their next-door neighbor without a permit, they're a criminal.

Something is very wrong, and very askew, with how our notions of freedom have evolved in this country. The good news is that we have all the elements in place for a tremendously healthy society. The bad news is that those elements are horribly out of whack and have become a monstrous, gluttonous machine, existing for its own abstract sake instead of the sakes of the real, living people who give it life.

Labels: Culture, Ruminations

I headed out with my story tucked into my hand
But the wind in the leaves told me I didn't need it
So I left my headphones behind
And chose instead the dialogue between the panoramic hissing of tree-walls
(is a cathedral anything more than a forest-replica of stone?)
birds, bugs, humans, dogs
and my own breath, crunching of limestone under feet, heartbeat.

The path, so tranquil
yet swarmed with a crashing wave of life
The turtle making its way up to the edge of the trail
only the closest herald of millions of strugglings all around me
In sound and movement, all around me the successes
in stillness and silence the inevitable failings.

Along a north-facing tree-wall on the edge of a clearing,
a part of the forest made into a regular home by the bright blue buntings
In my short time spent getting to know this place,
they've become a welcome part of the landscape, a seasonal visitor
(more likely I'm the visitor to their home)
I wonder how they regard me,
this great, red-capped, blue-clad creature
like some bluebird-god who walks the edges of their land
with no flight, no song.

Out here I'm no trouble.
Out here my empty hand wants to be sought out, but
is happy to not be holding anyone
where they don't want to be.
Out here there's no one to disappoint.

An older man and woman,
he thin and careful of movement, tanned, balding, bespectacled, quiet of voice
she heavier, a shock of white curls crowning her head, yet bright in eye
and clear and ringing in voice
spend the time I run more than three miles
walking slowly, carefully, methodically within a circle of a dozen yards.
They move carefully, respectfully, agog
pausing at bloom, leaf, stem,
considering, sharing, smelling, relishing
finding joy in things as they are.

A simple, plain white canvas bag is slung over his shoulder
It looks old but cared for
cut like a backpack, with thin straps and a one-button flap over the top opening
only the words "Save a tree" printed on the back of it.
In that small thing is a simplicity, an innocence, a clarity
it strikes me as a landmark of an earlier part of the journey
when we knew enough.

We know too much now.
We are spoiled, cynical, ruined.
Across our digital threshold are infinite possibilities
and no humanity.
We struggled with our heavy plastic boxes, flickering displays, tape reels
We cobbled together life out of voltages and filters
And finally achieved our goal when our creation could do anything
without moving at all.
I can do anything with these tools, yet none of it feels real anymore.

There is no place for this in this world.
And so I keep going back to the cathedral
and hope I'll understand
what its voice is telling me.

Labels: Poems, Ruminations, Running

There are few things that bring me more peace than the sight of a deserted trail stretching in front of me. Every step I take out onto it becomes such an intimate thing--a soft, hushed application of my weight, muted to silence by the awe of sprawling life all around me. I cross the bridge, emerge from the first canopy and breathe in the vast, open expanse of field beyond, and suddenly it's as though the teeming acquirocracy I left only minutes before no longer exists, and never did.

Then there's thudding breath, a beat of footfalls, entwining muscles clenching and releasing, body chemicals coursing, rushing, stories and songs rolling through my head, struggle and freedom at the same time.

Occasionally I crouch and pluck a fat, squirming worm from its spot in the dusty, gravelly trail—the poor inchoate sensor having stranded itself in the powdery suffocation from which it wouldn't escape—and place it gently down on a nearby spot of bare, damp, cool ground. Then I straighten up and go back to the joyous struggle.

At the end, I almost don't but then do pick up some cast-off filth from near my car—the random debris that only careless humans can create, the kind that poisons while being made and poisons after being discarded. And only because of that extra few seconds' work am I still there when you arrive, and though I came for silent, solitary meditation, I am glad to see you and speaking with you makes me happy. And I leave thinking that somewhere in these few simple moments is most everything I need to know about life. I know I'll forget it soon. And remember it again sometime after that. And so it goes.

Labels: Ruminations, Running