Born To Run...Ahead To The Past!

Shalom!

I am in my hometown of Princeton, New Jersey visiting parents, friends, and cousins.  Being with family is always a great test to see where I AM and what old patterns of thought I need to let go of.  To paraphrase Ram Dass, "If you think you're enlightened try being with your family".  Family members have perfected the art of "helping" us to see the places in our lives where we still have some resistance and are not allowing Well Being.  It's called "pushing our buttons".
I am so grateful that I am having that opportunity right now and I love and bless my family and friends for the wonderful lessons!

One Revelation I have had on this "trip back home" (which I refer to as "Ahead To The Past", more about the future expansion aspect rather than the past limiting aspect) concerned running.  When I was in my 20's a big part of my life was devoted to training, participating and competing in marathons, ultras, triathlons and cycling races (7 marathons, a 60K ultramarathon, numerous triathlons including the Ironman distance, and a few cycling double centuries and 1 RAAM qualifier).  I gradually evolved to cycling as my primary form of physical activity.  I missed not being able to run anymore (my knees had started to hurt...I tried different running shoes and orthotics...but it only helped temporarily at best).  Running, in my opinion, is the most efficient form of total body conditioning, period!  As a species we have evolved to inhabiting a body temple that was Born To Run.  I have been wanting to run again for years.

Before leaving Oregon on this trip back east, my friend Drew Mebane gave me the book "Born To Run".  He had said it changed his life and we talked about some aspects of the book that intrigued me.  After finishing "Born To Run" I can also say, "this book has changed my life!".  It gave me the courage and inspiration to toss aside my running shoes and go barefoot.  Brilliant!  I am loving being in the world in a way that feels indigenous.  The thought about running barefoot feels so natural.

My first foray to barefootedness (my feet, in the past, were unusually tender and sensitive so going barefoot anywhere, I believed, could be harmful), was on a 3 mile mountain hike in Eagle, Colorado with my wife and father-in-law.  I decided to shuck my shoes and socks and give it a try on the hard packed dirt path and it felt great!  Feeling my feet on and into the earth is a very grounding spiritual experience.  I tried a slow jog a couple of times during the hike which was encouraging.  I started to think,  "I can do this!", and remembered that running was certainly in my Vortex ever since I stopped about 20 years ago.

I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey on Franklin Avenue which is near the Princeton Shopping Center and less than a mile away from Princeton High School (PHS class of '78).  The High School has excellent facilities and I decided to try out barefooting on the track.  The inside of the track, the infield, turned out to be the best with its artificial turf that was softer than the harder springy high tech track.  I tuned into the same place that I do when I am on my bike and just relaxed into the feel of running again.  I talked myself through the form checks, "toes relaxed and flexed...back straight...arms pumping...stride short".  I felt liberated and elated and ended up running for over an hour, probably about 7 miles, barefoot!  Afterward, my feet felt great without the slightest hint of blisters or sores. Many things fell into place at that moment and I got a glimpse of Law of Attraction in action.  Here is only some of the cooperative components:

1.  Aligning With My Entire Being - Past, Present, and Future
When I was making plane reservations for this trip, the best flight that we booked (best meaning the most value with the lease inconveniences) from Denver to Newark had a connection through Charlotte, North Carolina.  I am an '82 graduate from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte and began running there after retiring, at age 19, from tournament tennis.  Soon I was training for my first marathon, Boston, which I ran in unofficially.  My fastest marathon time, 2:58:47, occurred at The Charlotte Observer Marathon when I was 21.  I was curious about the Charlotte connection when I made the plane reservations and now understand the connection in terms of what has evolved between me and running.  I began my marathon and ultramarathon running in Charlotte.  It is only fitting that I connect with that part of My Self, love it, and embrace it as I begin a new chapter, Barefooting.

2.  Efficiency and Convenience
I have been desiring to participate in a form of exercise that I can do anywhere at anytime.  Though I have enjoyed my bike rides immensely and will continue to have them (especially in the middle of the night when it's just Me, The Stars, and The Moon), it is much simpler and easier to run because it does not require all the equipment and gear and it can be done at just about any time of the year.  I foresee MySelf traveling more to foreign countries and running is the most convenient and effective form of exercise anywhere at anytime!

3.  My Spiritual Evolution
It feels to me like running is a more grounded activity than cycling.  I say this because when I am running my body is connecting with the earth in a grounding and intimate way...embracing the Law of Gravity. When I am cycling I am rolling along and I feel like I am floating above the earth plane, defying gravity.  At this time in my life experience I am wanting to manifest, in earthly, physical form, my desires, and running feels like a catalyst in assisting that to happen.


4.  Lovingly Caring For My Body Temple
Running feels like the best thing I can do for my holy and sacred body temple.  I feel in alignment and in sync when I am running consistently.  All my organs function efficiently and effectively and I love how I feel and look when I have a lean and hard physical body.

To all former runners...I highly recommend the book, "Born To Run" by Christopher McDougall, and I am grateful for its revolutionary outcome on my life.  I feel liberated and have just left another part of my own mitzrayim (we all create our own mitzrayim's, aka, limitations).  I look forward to years of running In-JOY-ment and the further expansion of my Being.  Halleluyah!!!
                      

The Meaning of Torah

This morning I had an insight that I think explains, from my own perspective, what Torah is about and how it is written as a teaching tool.

The entire Torah is a dramatic description of life on planet earth and how we evolve. 
In the beginning, there is only God (I prefer the term Source Energy because there is less emotional attachment to that term).  Out of God, a separation occurs, Tohu Va Vohu.  This separation is the splitting of energy into a dualistic system.  Above and below, light and dark, day and night, physical and non-physical.  We choose to descend into the physical world because of the fun and joy to be had in creating and manifesting into physical form (physical knock-on-wood stuff, earth furniture) from formlessness, non-physical (these are our thoughts, and our entire life experience is created from the thoughts that we think).

In the Garden of Eden we find ourselves as Source Energy (God) in a physical body.  All of our needs are met and we are surrounded by only beauty and abundance.  But Adam (the earth being) and Eve have a desire to descend lower into a world of greater contrasting experience, an even lower vibrational plane.  Through the experiences of this first Earth Family and their descendants, a variety of desires are created for living a better life.  A life filled with Joy, Celebration, and Love.

Through these different stories a description of God (Source Energy) emanates from the character or characters who are having the experience of Source Energy.  Source Energy speaks to Noah in a way that only he can understand (it is a personal message).  Abraham connects to Source Energy through meditation and receives instructions this way.  Moses speaks directly with this Source Energy "face-to-face".  What Source Energy is in all of these encounters is the individuals God Self.  The part of the human that is connected, eternally, to Source Energy.  Every human has this capacity and we all express it our own unique way.  This is the differentiation of The One. 

So the entire Torah is the story of the returning to The One from the state of duality (this is best expressed by the ending of the Torah where Moses dies from a kiss from God.  Moses is re-emerged into Source Energy which is the inevitable fate of all humankind).  There is no death.  Just an ecstatic and blissful return into the furtherest point of expansion that we have created.  We are both the Creator (God, Source Energy) and the Created (human being, husband, father, tennis player, trumpeter, etc.).

What I have discovered is that my life is at its best when I am fully aware, in the moment, of both aspects of my being.  My eternal God self, and my physical human form.  When this happens, I am in alignment  between my Egoic personality self (that I have adopted in this lifetime) and my Higher Soul self (that is eternal and forever expanding).  In this state (also known as "The Zone") I am able to consciously and deliberately create my own experience.  From No-Thing I can create whatever I want.  From The Void and Formlessness comes Form.  In other words, I am simply an instrument of focused attention.