Wholistic Fitness

Namaste!  my name is, well, it doesn’t matter so what’s the point?

Here is what matters and is the point:  Cardio workouts ARE a form of Pilgrimage, and that precious, treasured notion has been lost in a perverse ocean of iPods, iPhones with GPS-coordinated workout apps, and a whole host of other Kali Yuga bullshit…read on for what is real…feeble ilg will keep you grounded in the Wholy Sweat…

the mountain you see behind me is my chi-ldhood mountain not 800 meters from my home in which i grew up…i took Pilgrimage to that same slope today, in order to reConnect via the Sacred Sweat.

and ilg did ReConnect in Ways unknown, unfelt, and sadly? unSensed by the common man…

you want a Brazilian Butt workout?  well, here’s your stinkin’ Stairmaster, baby, …hip deep snowshoeing up a dakini and deity populated Superstition Mountain up 1,000′ vert through hip-deep powder up 32% gradients, any number of which might just trigger an avalanche upon all your pretty little chakra’s, samskara’s, and om tattoo’s…

after grunting through super steep powder through a nearly impenetrable forest of Gamble Oak guarding Superstition Mountain’s initial bite,  i reached this spot which i call, “Dakini Freeway” because:
1) it allows for faster uphill progress without the entanglement of the dastardly delicious Gambel Oak,
and
2) this corridor of space literally sings and dances with 5th Dimensional Beings – namely female Dakinis – and is always an interesting Space/Place in which to sweat and Listen and Devote…ilg felt especially vulnerable to hungry Puma’s because i quickly became intoxicated by the Divine Dance of Deities which play upon these slopes…

the house in which ilg grew up?
can be seen by squinting;  it’s the house located about a third viewer left…
you see, 35 years ago?  our house was only one of three houses out here…

“The way of the Buddhas manifests as a great river.
The dazzling display of unfulfilled desire,
Samsara’s wave, of it’s own has passed away.”

-Mahasiddha Naropa

the final summit headwall…ilg has been post-holing for 40 minutes to reach this spot…heart-rate is heaven sent…progress so slow…ilg feels like a leech committed to suck the spiritual life from my precious chi-ldhood mountain as if she might disappear tomorrow…

oh, the Utah Juniper sisters!
ilg, from my chi-ldhood casa below, long gazed upward at these two Tree Beings perched high upon
Superstition Mountain’s slopes, the only two outstanding features on an obviously Spaceship-scarred landing spot (tis true!)…i remember trudging up this same line to these Twin Tree’s on my father’s (ilg loves you, Puggy!) rawhide, cobbed, wooden snowshoes carrying my leather ski boots, wooden alpine skis with cable bindings to this tree, just to ski down and be able to gaze upon my ski tracks from my house knowing – KNOWING – that yes, i did what it took to make those tracks!

Gospel of Thomas: “The kingdom is inside you, and outside you. When you have come to know yourselves, then you will be known…Recognize what is before your eyes, and what is hidden will be revealed to you.”

My journey through this Secret Land of Dakini’s and Deities required great suffering, high heart rate, and indefatigable spirit…each time i grabbed a Gambel Oak in order to heft my body upward through the deep, steep snows?  i imagined that each heft, Mantra sent, drew out my karmic impurities…

ilg also Practiced what i’ve Taught you for decades;  “Always, keep one eye (especially the Inner Eye) on the summit when trekking through difficult (physical and metaphysical) terrain.”

Spiny Leaf Cactus;   easily blending her winter posture with seemingly sybaritic embrace of winter’s garb…

As ilg heaved, huffed, and puffed my fatigued hip flexors through the deep, sacred snows i actually arrived at such a point whereupon i felt i was literally fucking the snow with each uphill hip-flexor driven stab into the expansive, soft, and all-too accommodating virgin powder…the universal symbolism upon my sweating, heaving, driving body/mind/spirit not being lost to the rather obvious analogy;  at times, the intensity of cardio work spurns sexual passion which of course is but an often sub-conscious, samskaric longing for an end to duality and a return to wholeness.

the whole point of inner work is to wake up from this collective dream and recognize
that there are no inherent boundaries between external effort and the circuitry of consciousness…
looking down on Turtle Lake…Missionary Ride in the background and Animas Moutain, photo right, foreground.
such is the womb of WF.
viva WF!
she is a beyul….remaining hidden to the Outer World, causing great suffering to ilg’s clan until the Outer World wakes up…which is why ilg and my family DEPEND upon YOUR Temple Tithes!

during the descent;  this mountain seduces you into a type of esoteric consolation of what Could Be…
ilg had to snowshoe quietly, artfully down this avalanche-prone section…Franz Kafka’s words came to mind as ilg realized – ironically – i could be washed under an avalanche not 800 meters from my chi-ldhood front door; “The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked;  it has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
and so, ilg rolled…

As ilg offered “my”self to the Deities during the insane, extreme downhill?
The surface of the snow seemed to turn to water beneath my flying snowshoes…
my sight line became transcendent, still, and Knowing…
i found myself again and again within the deep, sacred, luscious snows…
now aware that a small mOMent of intense Devotion
would produce an empty space within me
that would relieve
my own
fear

of

death.