Wholistic Fitness

Though this DL was inspired by my 10-mile Mountain Peak Run this morning…

…i Dedicate this DL to my Beloved Ananda. only imagination can serve me for what endurance is required to keep fit for a 9-month pregnancy leading into the most Divine Workout that any human can experience.

Mountains come in all kinds.
All shapes.
Each holds and molds tremendous lessons for us.

We must, at least in THIS Warrior Tribe, climb our mountains with as much Nobility and Bravery as we can muster. No matter how steep, how technical, how cold, how daunting be the Peak. Here is My Lady carrying our Baby yesterday. Each day we try to share our “Oxygenate The Placenta” Walk. if i was truly brave and noble, i’d carry around a 45 pound barbell plate with me to match up the weight gain of Ananda’s pregnancy. i don’t. yet, even through ice-cold rain does my Beloved step up to the plate of being as Wholistically Fit as possible to provide for our Baby Girl’s healthy delivery.

it has been Great Medicine to have witnessed and shared Sacred Sweat side by side with some of this planet’s greatest athletes.

and, having climbed in more ways more mountains than most, i can also add that this beautiful partner of mine shows me day after day PRECISELY what World Class Fitness of Body/Mind/Spirit and what true mountaineering is all about.

may you enjoy this DL, that reveals some of the endless chi that streams from where i live.
and may you continue to forgive my paltry attempts to reflect and record that chi
in multiLaytered Ways for you.

thank you for listening and may you Speak Well of me.

om so ti

the mountain yogi

photo of Ananda by ilg.
photo of ilg at summit of Kendrick Peak by Sara of
Kahtoola

***

this 10 mile mountain run would be nearly twice as far as my longest run of my handful of runs so far this season. there was, however, no way in Heaven i was going miss running up a 10,400′ beautiful peak – an extinct volcano actually – just 18 miles from my door! doing so would be ultra “duh!”

thus, with my cell phone glued to me, in case Baby Om begins to make her appearance, i swapped my usual date for Saturday Morning – the local road bicycle training ride – for this club mountain run. go(o)d thing about Flag; we have many very cool (zero ego) clubs to suit any outdoor interest. stoked, i jumped into Bala (our Honda Element) to meet the super kind and dastardly fast mountain runners of:

Northern Arizona Trail Runners Assoc.

we met, about 10 Two Leggeds and 2 Four Leggeds, beneath the Sacred Peak for car pooling. i was honored to give ride to Eric (my RRR teammate), Mark (just two weeks fresh from Oklahoma and a great runner) and Dustin. Dustin requires a fresh sentence. This guy…wait, Dustin deserves his own picture in DL…ilg would be honored, hold on a sec…

…yep, dat’s Dustin; on the left with Eric, my RRR Teammate on the right. Dustin’s name should really be; Dust-them and this is because Dustin can easily Dust Them and i don’t really care who Them is as long as Them is trying to run up a steep, high altitude mountain peak. why? because this beautiful father of two is a bit like the Uphill Lagat. this Dustin ain’t too shabby on a bicycle either. Dustin knew me from back in the day and it was wonderful and inspiring to share the Sacred Sweat with him on this peak beneath the Sacred Peak. Of course, Dustin dusted me by like 12 minutes but remember (and all of you WF Online Students know what coach says comes after the ‘but’ word!), i had to take these photos for you all! 😉

start of the trailhead at 7, 890′. if there is one thing that has not changed in fitness over the years it’s the way runners do their token ‘runner stretches’ before hammering away. i love runners. they can’t do pull ups for shit,and they are usually scared stiff (literally) of taking my Yoga Classes, however, i love em cuz i grew up as one!

The summit of the 10,400′ peak we were going to run up was only 4.6 miles away. ilg will leave the vertical feet mileage upon you. hec, how hard could a measly four and a half miles be?

this trail wastes zero time in gaining some altitude
lifting the lucky being who treads upon it
easily and quickly above the ponderosa corralled praires wherein
antelope, wapiti, coyote, and bear still play
to this day.

what’s not to love about running among the dewy gurgle and chuckle of high country flora and creatures
singing their praises about thy feet? so potent was the exchange of breath and prana,
that quickly did i barter my mantra for the simple wild m(om)ents colliding with my every step!

when my Teachers sent me three times to the Big City to bring the Dharma to the Big City people,
my heart broke
sometimes hard,
sometimes soft
upon waking each day
to that thin, scarred, and superficial life.
the parties, the clubbing was great
do NOT get me wrong…
however,
heart-wise,
i come from a life far, far different
whereupon education drifts politely
from elegant teachers like
lichened cliff faces,
and bright alpine meadows darkened only by blooming thunderheads
which send native wild flowers spiraling.

what is it that you need so badly
that keeps you away from this?

forget you.
what of your children?
your spouse?
your soul?

why
retire again and again to that same old
tired, toxic
city
with its ever accelerating rebirth of bandwidths in tarmac, input, and grasping gossip?

how will you apprehend the Inner World if you are too busy to do even a
30 minute Early Morning Ritual?

my Spiritual Teachers sent ilg to the two Grandest Pueblos of all
to ‘live’;
NYC and LA (twice).
They did this to me to put into process something Important:
to Learn To Let Go of that which i Loved, Cherished, and from which drew ‘fame’ and thus, more egoic armor.

They Knew: being the Fittest of all in the Throne of the High Mountains
would kill my spiritual Liberation due to Attachment.

So, Teacher forced me to watch my cherished mountain fitness
dwindle into the disastrous schmuck of too many shaking branches from the man made wind of greed;
too many people, too many conversations, too much tarmac,
too much Soul lost
to the decrepit, sinuous commercial arms of that fractured world.

and it was go(o)d for me (never doubt thy’s Teachers, no matter how difficult Their learning curve).

it may be go(o)d for you, too…

…if you learn to play judo with the ongoing crush of dialogue that underpins Big City living
until not even the grackle or hummingbird
can be heard.

ilg says these things to you
for i have been there…

…and now have returned here to the Pranic Ocean of the American Southwest…this time, beneath Doko Oosliid.

ilg says these things because
i love you; wherever you are,
whatever you do.

even the most hardened of mountain folk,
some who pride themselves on dissin’ City Folk,
would be hard pressed to bring their Love of the Mountains
and turn it inside out like i did and still do
to this very key-tapping moment
to help
to connect again
Tribal love
Earth tenderness
Sky veracity.

still recovering from my Big City Sadhana,
i ran up this lettuce colored volcano
surrounded by heaven’s touch
and
i attempt to bring you close to a moment of the Real,
away from your Storm of Busyness
and into the position taken by alpine lupine, bachelor buttons, and the sound of kestrel wings winging.

“They don’t make extinct volcano’s like this any more,” was the funny thought i had as i clammered up and onto the final summit!

from this summit shot, with Sedona toward my back and the Grand Canyon to my front, LA to my left, and NYC to my right; ilg invites you a brighter and simpler unseen moment;
the summit within.

run up a mountain today.
regardless of type or degree of slope;
just run the fuck up that baby as fast,
as hard,
as soft,
as TRUE as you can!

if you die,
it will be a go(o)d death.

if you don’t?
you may just dream as do i;
of higher mountains,
long necked and silky in the sky…
and of beautiful blossoming dark clouds
which never darken the Inner Eye.

***
care to climb Kendrick Peak next trip to Flag:
take Hwy 180 from Flag toward the Grand Canyon for 14 miles to mile post 230.
left onto 245 for 3.1 miles.
right onto 171 for 3.1 miles.
right onto 190 for .5 miles to trailhead.
thanks to Cosmic Ray!