"Wherever you go, There you are"

"The cosmic humor is that if you desire to move mountains and you continue to purify yourself, ultimately you will arrive at the place where you are able to move mountains.

But in order to arrive at this position of power you will have had to give up being he-who-wanted-to-move-mountains so that you can be he-who-put-the-mountains-there-in-the-first-place.

The humor is that finally when you have the power to move mountains, you are the person who placed it there --- so the mountain stays."

-Ram Dass

'Arachnids'

Lone Star Tick

I picked up an ectoparasite on today's run; this tick's distinctive white dot on the back classifies her as a female Lone Star Tick. 

Fortunately, the Lone Star is not considered a carrier of Lyme Disease; however, you can develop a rash (called STARI) from the Lone Star's bite which appears as a bull's eye rash similar to what one gets with a vector carrying Lyme Disease.

I found this cling-on behind my knee; already settling in for a nice warm meal. 

This is my first tick in a year. Considering all the trail running I do, that may sound impressive, but it's less about the fact I'm running in the woods constantly, and more about whether or not I'm running through tall grass or overgrown paths, and I did venture onto an OWASA path today that needed mowing and was brushing my calves.

Lesson learned!

'A Golden Substance'

Lonicera japonica

The Japanese Honeysuckle is considered an 'invasive' species in the United States; regardless of its unpopularity with the horticulture crowd, each year when the honeysuckle blossoms begin to unfurl late spring, and the woods become corridors of scent & memory, nostalgia wells up inside of me, and I am grateful for this simple little gift from nature.

While the flowers continue to bloom, I find delight in each trail that has an avenue draped with white & gold vines. I breathe the cloying sweetness deep into my lungs, immediately transported to childhood games when my sister's and I would would pluck the flower at the stem and gently suck the honeyed nectar at the base of the stamen. The vanilla scent is intoxicating and wild.

Honeysuckle is used in Chinese medicine, and called jin yin hua which translates to gold silver flower. Elegantly so.

Ram Dass offers a guided visual meditation where one visualizes the universe's spiritual substance "as a golden mist that fills the air."

"With every breath, don't just breathe in air; imagine you are pulling into yourself this golden substance...Breathe in the energy of the universe, the shakti of the universe...Each time you breathe out, breathe out all of the things in you that keep you from knowing your true Self...Let the breathe be the transformation."

When I read those lines I am reminded of the honeysuckle's scent. I hope that if you find a trail blessed with lonicera japonica, you will breathe deeply of that golden silver flowered substance, and feel the shakti of the universe.

"Here it is"

"If you fall in love 

with the road, you will forget the 

destination."

-Zen Saying

Where is your destination?

“Spiritual practice is 

searching for what has not been discarded and then 

discarding it.”

-Nisargadatta Maharaj

What needs discarding?

"Everything supports everything else

Everything is everything else

Everything is interdependent with everything else

Love, hate, fear courage holds the universe 

together

They all must be as they are for the universe to be 

as it is

A particle of dust

Interdependent

A grain of sand is as significant as “I”

-Stephen Wolinsky

'If earth was heaven and now was hence'

The Latin for Cicada

By C.I.M. Jones

If only I spoke a dead language,

poetry for instance:

The wind - leaf against leaf,

a sound you'd hear bobbing in a pool

of furious pencils. Something like the song

of the cicadas, who, were it not for the singing,

would write such meticulous records: how to find 

a lifelong mate, keep a perfect exoskeleton,

prepare a succulent meal for digestion.

Once in a while, some well-meaning cicada

might say: Don't you see? All this singing we do

means nothing. But lying in the dried summer grass 

they chirr, Our song is the thing.

Sometimes in a field of a splinter of wood

takes flame (flammula in Latin) -

poetic only when the music stops.

Running headlong into another season - the longest for our region, summer. The heat & humidity takes acclimation & caution; demands you slow down, take your pace a little slower, your long runs a little shorter.

Trails are a favorite of mine - the asphalt is unforgiving in the heat, and when I head for the woods where a green canopy overhead blocks the sun's intensity, I escape into a lush dense world busy with the lives of many living things. There's the racket in my ears of frogs & cicadas, and bluejays & catbirds. There's the dense sweetness of honeysuckle on the vine - a memory that hits me every summer with nostalgia that's sad & happy. There's the wisteria's choking floral scent, the growth of weeds, and ivy - 'leaves of three leave it be' - trails once empty & bare in winter, now closed & intimate. Behind every branch decked in flecks of green, there's a home for something that moves or crawls. I swallow gnats, swat away blowflies, dodge spider webs, and don't dare step into the brush - the forest has come alive.

According to the herpetologist, it's breeding season for copperheads.

Today, I met a copperhead in no hurry at all; his diamond shaped head, and distinctive pattern warned me, reminded me to stay off the trails too dense to see where my feet are landing.

Be safe, tread softly, and relish the cicadas ancient song.