'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.

Spring; movement & stillness

"Stillness is what creates love. Movement is what creates life. To be still and still moving, this is everything."

- Do Hyun Choe

Dogwoods a'blossom.

 



Signs; deep in the woods of Carolina North.

Found poetry...

 

 

Reconciling

“The distance runner is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious. He is repairing the rent, and healing the wound in his divided self. He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary; the commonplace unique; the everyday eternal.”

- George Sheehan

 

 

Burning up what is false

“‎As I get older I see that running has changed for me. What used to be about burning calories is now more about burning up what is false. Lies I used to tell myself about who I was and what I could do, friendships that cannot withstand hills or miles, the approval I no longer need to seek, and solidarity that cannot bear silence. I run to burn up what I don't need and ignite what I do.”

- Kristin Armstrong

 

Loneliness & Motivation

Running and meditation are very personal activities. Therefore they are lonely. This loneliness is one of their best qualities because it strengthens our incentive to motivate ourselves.”

- Sakyong Mipham



Choose to stay

"38 degree race time temperature, 30 mph winds, mud.... but The Cary Rockin Marathon Relay roles on! These athletes are tough as nails!" - Trivium Racing (9am this morning)

According to the warm forecast ahead, this morning is going to be my last of the winter race season. I am looking forward to running without having tears roll down my cheeks & snot dripping down my chin from the winds & bitter cold. Bring on the shorts!

It was a great last race of the season; the WakeMed Soccer Park for the Rockin' Marathon Relay. I teamed up with my running pal, Jon Hunter, who's training for a marathon 2 weeks from today.

We ran 8 1.65 mile laps apiece around the Soccer Park - passing the baton between each set. We went with a breakdown of laps per person: 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1 - the last 2 consecutive laps hardest of all!

The weather gods had the wind pushing us back on the last monster hill of each lap - running uphill into 30 mph winds equals double the amount of exertion and doubles your usual pace.

We ran under the team name of the Hawk Clan Runners - in Native American tradition, you receive an Animal Totem at birth - comparable to Astrology - I am an Aries / Falcon (Animal Totem) and Jon is a Libra / Raven - both the Falcon and Raven are members of the Hawk Clan. 

Reflecting upon today's experience, I've thought a good deal about community - the Falcon is a solitary creature, the Raven more communal. The Falcon can learn from the Raven.

A running pal who supports your journey, and teams up with you to accomplish a shared goal, is a good friend.

(Almost 3/4 of the way through, lap results)

On my drive to the race, just after 6am this morning, I came across the public radio program On Being, and today's guest was author & poet Jennifer Michael Hecht - no chance of fate that that was the interview I heard while mentally preparing for this race. 

"We have secret web-like connection to each other," says Hecht. "Sometime when you can't see what important about you other people can."

It may seem odd to have been inspired by an interview focusing on Hecht's new book; Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against. However, it was Hecht's words on community that resonated. 

There was a time in my own life 10 years ago, before I severed my biological family's toxic grip, that I chose to leave. Yet my spirit refused to succumb, and I was given the opportunity to live the life I was always meant to live.

Today I was renewed by the secret web-like connections of friendship, and community, and gently reminded of how wonderful it is to choose to stay, persevere and keep going - in life, and in a relay with 30 mph winds!

“None of us can truly know what we mean to other people and none of us can now what our future self will experience. History and philosophy ask us to remember these mysteries, to look around at friends, family, humanity, at the surprises life brings — the endless possibilities that living offers — and to persevere." - Jennifer Michael Hecht