Wholistic Fitness

this entry concludes my Series on my back-to-back performances at two Traditional Hopi Footraces. due to popular input, this Series may become available as an audio file and Pay-Per-PDF. check my Pro Shop often for new products…only sincere Seekers become Finders in our humble, powerful Path of Transpersonal Fitness since 1982. Thank you for considering DL as an important inspirational training tool for your Practice. Special Thanks to HP Yogini and Research Warrioress Leslieh and to Plateau Journal and to Peter Nabokov for his book, Indian Running, which i have prescribed to various WF students as part of their Svadhyaya for many moons.

“My grandfather told me that Talking God comes around in the morning, knocks on the door, and says, ‘Get up, my grandchildren, it’s time to run, run for health and wealth.'”
– Cochiti elder Jose Trujillo, in an interview with Edith Wilson sixty years ago.

I awoke and broke camp in the Brahmamuhurti energy of predawn. Second Mesa was vibrating with waves of etheral softness. Each pinon tree branch, every tassle of sage seemed to smile and speak uniquely to me. As if i really mattered. Vishnu, my adopted Res Dawg, was nowhere to be seen having merged once again to the oblique periphery of creatures attempting to live another day in this harsh land.

Lathering my new secret of Organic Baby Diaper Lotion upon my blistered feet produced a wincing smile as Brother Raven pestered and poked about a forlorn arroyo nearby. My blisters appeared to me as badges of honor, a just effect from a just cause…racing Indian style up and down through wild terrain and interminable sandy washes. Lacing up my running shoes, i sensed today’s race would be far more difficult than yesterdays…yet many times worth the sweat and struggle. I came here to see my Pilgrimage to the Ancient Ones completed. A warrior’s journey takes many forms. Usually, a battle against insurmountable odds and an endless willingness to sacrifice the body in pursuit of a noble, Heart-based goal is what makes a warrior’s adventure a genuine one. If i do ‘hate’ anything, it is a Pilgrimage left uncompleted.

Packing up Bala quickly. Then, Neti and a super-fast “At-Sink Pranayama” minus the sink. This morning was not one to linger in these Early Morning Rituals. That is what my consistency (abhyasa) of this daily routine back in Flagstaff produces; the ability to speed quickly through makeshift pre-race rituals. With blisters squeezed into my shoes, i dropped into a yogi squat for my pranayams and gave Thanks to the Great Spirit for being Blessed enough to be able to do such deeply meaningful things.

Driving into the ancient village of Sipaulovi, i parked on the perimeter of the village, near my Hopi family’s casa. Between golden shafts of early morning light, a gathering crowd of Hopi Runners, punctuated by exactly 5 palefaces seemed to highlight the folly of my endeavor. The pain of my blisters curtailed any big warm-up, so instead, i leaped and danced across the rimrock to the very edge of the 600′ sandstone cliff and, yogi-squatting, stared across Hopi Land, recalling the ghostly Katsina dancers of the evening before…

Katchina-Ta´h-Ha as depicted in the famed watercolor of JJ Mora, who – during 1904-06 – lived among the Hopi and was the first to depict the deep spirituality of the Hopi to an astonished Outer World. Just recently, Mora’s cache of priceless paintings has been rescued from the IRS with the help of the Museum of Northern Arizona which is just across the Rio de Flag from my home.

…i recall being suspended at the Home Dance last night as the Katsina moved and danced in straight lines. Hundreds of Hopi’s were silently watching this ancient Dance unfold before them. A deep AUM started to permeate the dusty, windy plaza throbbing with the movements of the Katsina. It did not take long to realize that the several hundred Hopi were in fact, meditating. They stopped being an Observer and took spiritual residence within the Katsinas until both Observer and the Observed merged. It was beautiful Yoga. Union.

Hó-E-Nai Mana – Hopi East Mesa, 1904. watercolor by JJ Mora. This depiction is of a Hoenai, a girl dancer in the big harvest Dances. John Wesley Powell, the great explorer of the southwest was the first white man to pay a Hopi for a “Katchina Doll” which are little replicas of the human dancers. Although once considered a sin to carve a Katchina commercially, Powell started a Katchina Collecting habit that now overwhelms Native American ‘art.’ To the older Hopi, the katsina dolls were never intended to be hung up on walls or sold. Former Hopi Chairman Vernon Masayesva speaks about how practical were the Katchin Dolls growing up, “About those Katsinas, especially the older ones, you let nature take its course. You allow the spirit to go home. You let it (the doll) deteriorate. True to our belief, you go back to where you came from, back to nature.” No better explanation for the Yogi’s description of Enlightenment as well; purusha merges into prakriti.

Forcing myself from my pre-race trance, I jog back to the Start Line which was cornmeal sprinkled across the main outer street of the village. Around me a dozen runners. Two of them, among the fastest Hopi Runners remaining in this historic Tribe of Indian Runners. They looked it. One of them lived not 30 feet from this Start Line. Eldon, the Race Director, spoke in Hopi. Two Hopi maidens held up a rough hewn map of the Race Course, a course that i would be the first white man to run. The course included sections of eon-old footraces including the Snake Race and the Basket Carrier Race.

Eldon chanted a Hopi Blessing for all of us and with a shout of “HEYA!!!” i began what would prove to be one of the most meaningful competitions of my life. Within moments, the two champion Hopi Runners looked like Louis Tewinama himself, and absolutely launched straight down off the mesa into the rising sun, whisps of dust coming off their feet. Not exactly a slacker in downhill running, i engaged an Uddiyanic Upliftment to my upper body and biting my lip, busted all my blisters into a bloodbath in my shoes as i immediately grabbed the Mantra and spun my legs into the mile-long descent…may the suffering begin…

Midway down the descent, i ran past the “Sunlight Mission,” a vestige of an attempt to replace Hopi Spirituality with Franciscan Catholicism in the old days. Two teenage Indian Runners were in front of me…one of the village dogs was running with them, threatening to make them fall. The boys seemed unconcerned and deftly side stepped the dog over and over again. Effortless effort, the phrase came to me, as i attempted to hold their pace…these boys could run like the wind, let me tell you.

Descent completed…now the dirt road, washboarded out, yawned into the mesa for a mile. The Champions had stretched their lead and were already a quarter a mile in front of our chase group. Gritting through the Mantra, i really did my best to hold the boy’s pace, yet they simply and steadily ran away from me…the elastic had been stretched and now broke.

i was left to my own pace in the rising sun.

The long mile road then took a right hand turn and followed a bare scratch of a roller-coaster cowpath through 3 miles of arroyos and sagebrush whereupon any unmindful foot strike will cost dearly in terms of speed and effort, for there is great talent in running upon naked, raw earth. Before entering this cowpath/ditch section, i stopped and yogi squatted at Aid Station #1 (two Hopis in a pickup with a large water jug on the tailgate). My back was already beyond pain thanks to the pounding of the downhill right off the bat, yet, the boys and i had created a big gap, at least 100 yards to the next runner, a paleface, behind me.

Onto the cowpath i ran…determined not to let anyone bridge up to me after working that downhill so hard.

Routes of the Ancient Indian Runners of my Beloved Southwest. These Indian Runners could outrun white men on horses and their routes covered over 375 miles. “For a dollar,” wrote George Wharton James in 1903, “I have several times engaged a young Indian to take a message from Oraibi to Keam’s Canyon, a distance of 72 miles, and he has run on foot the entire distance, delivered his message, and brought me an answer within 36 hours.” And you wonder why i felt such an honor to be running with these amazing Beings?

This ‘ditch running section’ hurt me. Plunging into and scrambling out from washes, arroyos, and ditches. Up ahead, i could no longer see the two Champions. They were probably already back up on the mesa, sipping Hopi tea. The two boys, one of whom i would later learn, was an accomplished Navajo/Zuni runner, had separated. I still had a visual on the second of the two boys which kept me somewhat positively charging up and down through the tricky terrain. Occasionally, i’d glance behind me and sure enough, there was a bouncing head among the sagebrush…i was barely maintaining the distance between myself and 6th place. I was his target.

During the 3-mile section of “ditch running” was this sign. Joy and i first saw this sign when we were on a road trip through this region. We were pregnant with Dewa at the time and on the lookout for the “Third Auspicious Sign” to seal our choice of naming our daughter Dewa. When we saw this sign, out here in the remote land of the Hopi, we just looked at each other and smiled. “Om So Ti,” for sure! After some hard-won research with Hopis, we learned that in Hopi, Dawa (also written Dewa) means “sun”. We already knew that in Tibetan, ‘Dewa’ means, ‘moon.’ A child born to two yogi parents, the meaning of Ha-tha Yoga is, of course, “Sun/Moon Union.”

Aid Station #2 @ 4.25 miles. This one appeared almost official; it was commandeered by a lovely white-haired elderly couple who looked as if they had stepped straight out from a Boca Raton air conditioned condo. all the water cups were lined up nicely in neat rows upon a checkerboard cloth table. “You are doing REALLY well,” said the lady of the two and it seemed like she REALLY meant it.

“Thanks for coming out,” i managed to huff as i once again sat in my “ilg wheelchair” and sipped a little then poured the rest of the precious water on my head. “Coming out from where,” is what i wondered to myself as i let them steer me onto the first section of the uphill portion; a sinewy cowpath interwoven among a sage-chocked wash.

The moment i ran into this wash, i felt the undeniable stab of a Spirit Being. It was like moving from one Plane of Reality into a whole new flow of consciousness. Suddenly, my feet were tools of Light and my Intuitive Body floated among the bramble and tricky terrain with half the conscious effort of the Ditch Section. Now i was running straight toward the Mesa, upon whose rimrock was perched the lofty lego-like structures of the Hopi. it looked for all the world as if i was running in Tibet, toward the Potala Palace of the Dali Lama (before the Chinese genocide which is still in full swing…some Olympic Hosts, eh?).

“Trust your Inner Wolf,” came the Spirit Being’s voiceless voice inside my head.

“Apache?” i asked…

Nothing but silent sweat…

“Apache?” i repeated, nearly crying at the image of my Root Teacher; my wolf hybrid with whom i grew up in Durango, Colorado. The spiritual journey is like that. As we expand our Consciousness Fitness through meditation, we become privy to Contact from the innumerable other Planes. The challenge is a simple yet a strong one; our ego. We have all these pre-conditioned thought forms which literally ‘de-fine’ our UniVerse, making the UniVerse far less ‘fine’ (subtle) than what it surely is. Our pattern of thought is so very deep that we just can’t seem to access the liberation of the Free Mind. or, if we do, say in meditation or those “Ah-Ha” m(om)ents, we’re so attached to our old values or conditions of what “heaven” or “awakening” should be, or the definitions we’ve built of ourselves (through societal conditioning) is so deeply ingrained that we can’t ‘grock’ the new paradigm, so we instantly de-fine the spiritual experience with terms and categories with which our ego is more comfortable.

For me, doing races like this one,
busts more than mere blisters.
it busts my normal gestalt of consciousness…
and so i keep running,
through my broken-back pain,
through the snakeweed and cholla,
i keep running, best i can,
not giving up.
not giving in.

and there beneath the Hopi National Mesa,
with my Apache Spirit,
i hammered up that wash,
putting big time between myself and 6th place
while demolishing archaic egoic structures
and some new ones as well.

burning samskara.

Out of the wash at mile 5.2 and onto a, get this, 200 yard section of paved road (the one that leads up to the Mesa…see prior DL photo in this series) which had to be 18%! So, from absolutely zero traction in sandy wash running to super sticky pavement but at such a gradient that “running” up it was not exactly “running.”

then, veer left and WOW!
i was at the base of the Ancient Cliff…looking up, i could now see over a dozen Hopi’s,
silhouetted against the morning sky;
they were cheering in Hopi…encouraging the boys and, perhaps, even myself,
as i attacked the Great Sand Chute.

The Great Sand Chute?

Aye, The Great Sand Chute.

This thing had to be several hundred years old and it was an enormous Sand Dune, gathered at the foot of the Mesa cliff. one big ripping chute tore up it’s middle and that was where the course went. it was a case of one-step-up, slide-3 feet-back type of affair if you did not know how to run on sand.

Enter my World Sandshoe Championship experience…ilg knows how to run up steep sand. Doesn’t do shit for me in the Outer World,
yet here,
against these Hopis,
my SandRunning experience closed the gap between myself and 5th place with verve…a verve from a paleface that attracted the attention of the Hopi’s now only 600′ above me…then i heard my Hopi family’s voice among them;
“Go Steve!”…and i was overwhelmed as i climbed Mother Earth’s sandbox…that i had family,
way out here,
Hopi family…calling my name…
it was a special m(om)ent and one that i shall never forget…

either was the final 600’…
exiting the sandbox, i crawled up and onto the ancient staircase,
cut by the Hopi in a time when no palefaces roamed Turtle Island…
the chants and cheers of the Hopi overhead grew louder,
and the gap between myself and Hopi Running Boy continued to drop.
Steep is my terrain
and i fairly growled my way up those Sacred Stairs of Sandstone ledges,
one after the other…
Hopi Running Boy kept looking down at me,
“Damn,” surely he must have thought, “What the hell is that old paleface doing?”

Catching your Hopi Ass, that what this ol’ wolf-trained albino was doing!

HOWL!!!!!

i could FEEL the Ancient Native Spirit within my cells…i was running up those sandstone ledges like a mountain goat…

“Go Steve!”

“Arms drive the legs,” i said to myself…the very words i wrote in my books about sport performance. This vertical gash in the side of this Hopi cliff was no longer a mere route up rock…
it
was
my
Path
to
God…

so i keep running at my max heart rate…
Hopi Running Boy kept running too…
300’…
200’…
100’…
the ledge system veered right and the final few scrambling moves were all Indian from me and i popped out at the feet of the gathered Hopi, all of whom were smiling and yelling…some offered their weathered, beautiful hands to me…

“Go Steve,” yelled my Hopi mother, “You must run into the Village for the Finish!”

and
so,
i
ran
into
Sipaulovi…

as
if
i truly lived there…

and
now,
i have.

The mountain, I become part of it –
The herbs, the fir tree,
I become part of it.
The morning mists,
The clouds, the gathering waters,
I become part of it.
The sun that sweeps across the earth,
I become part of it.
The wilderness, the dew drops, the pollen –
I become part of it.

– Navajo Chant

final photo:
True CHI RUNNING
long, long, LONG before the Paleface
bastardized the notion,
forgetting upon whose shoulders they run,
reducing true chi running
into clean sneakers made in China
and neatly folded techniques
so suitable for fancy workshops.

Noble WF Warriors,
just do me a favor and MEDITATE on this photo…
enlarge it.
print it out.
put in on your Puja Table…
and…
start running…
perhaps in the pre-dawn Light of Father Sky
perhaps without the iPod
perhaps with just yourself
and the
Sacred Silence and Sweat…

Just Listen.

EPILOGUE
After the race, i received so many gifts from my Hopi friends, competitors, and family. For my 5th place finish, a Tribal Elder bestowed me with a watermelon…and went eye-to-eye with me, saying something in Hopi, holding my shoulders. His energy was tremendous into my cells. Afterward, i learned he was telling me that i carried “Big Medicine” for the White People and that it was a Good Sign that i was the first White Man up the stairs. I was to return and keep running, He said.

then, i sat outside the home of my Hopi Family, which kept expanding as the hours leaked by. they insisted i sit at the head of the table. i ate a traditional ceremonial Hopi meal with “Rebecca” seated on my right…she must have been very old, yet her eyes, words, intellect, wit, and the skin of her hands were absolutely sattvic. Grandfather Sun was strong and around me, laughter and easy conversation filled the late morning air. Other villagers would stop by and chat and hold the new babies and there was such deep Connection among these People. People to whom the White Man has raped and abused in every conceivable way for hundreds of years.

yet,
here i sat.
welcomed
and loved.

“Steve,” my Hopi Mother took my hand before i left for Flag, “i picked these for you. Last night, while we talked on the rocks, you mentioned you enjoyed the blossoms of the sand sage,” and she pressed a bundle of sage into my hands.

After i thanked her, i returned to Bala, frantically searching for something to give them in return…NORTHERN ARIZONA YOGA CENTER decals was all i could muster. i ran them back to the breakfast table, asking permission to give them to the kids.

Turning once again back to Bala, my hand was grabbed by my Hopi cousin, Regina was her English name, a beautiful young maiden, “Here,” she said, “follow me,” and we disappeared into their home. Several amazing minutes later, i emerged with another bagful of…plums.

For those of you who have ordered products from me in the past two weeks, i’ve included a picking of this very sage.

I’ve already eating all the plums.

They were go(o)d.