Wholistic Fitness

being a durango mountain yogi means…

pic by ilg from my mountain bike this morning which inspired this offering…may your Practice benefit…

being a durango mountain yogi means,
Being with It All…(Tvat Tvam Asi)

it’s been a windy, cold spring for outdoor athletes in the Bubble (of Durango)…
local single track now lays like celestially-graced altar fabric anywhere beneath 9,000′.  snow and mud a mere afterthought from my skiing just a couple of weeks ago.
snow.
(conscious breath, adjust posture)…
ahh, my precious sacred snows…
as a chi-ld growing up in Durango?  tears literally formed as i watched from the backseat of my parents Jeep Cherokee the filth-permeated, coal-dusted snows on Main melt into their elemental death as the high country snows still danced with verve in alpine wind.  though the City Of Durango no longer uses coal dust to accelerate the snow melt on our city streets, that crazy juxtaposition of unlucky spring snow falling upon a Durango street with that of a snowflake whose air dance made its improbable way onto the armored skin of Sister Lynx or Brother Mountain Goat on Coal Bank?   Still drives me to wonder in Zen koan-like ways; does a single snowflake carry black or white karma as she falls so gracefully upon our precious plane(t)?
sacrificed like corn husks before the first corn dance
perhaps the snowflakes of winter haven’t yet left us?
my highest finish in the Iron Horse Bicycle Bicycle Classic came in the mid-nineties when i was a young Cat.3 and somehow stuck with the Lead Group past the old Mill Creek Ski Area above the start of Coal Bank Pass.  After our Lead Group passed that checkpoint, Race Organizers closed the gates after us.  we flew up the pass among the heavy snows and winds…hypothermic yet stoked to be in such a rare realm of suffering and beauty.   i finished 6th then promptly rode my convulsing body to the old Texaco gas station where i knew they had one of those warm hand blowers in their restroom which saved my numbed hands from frost bite.
many newcomers to Durango now intentionally leave our luscious town during the spring to vacation in tropical ethers and in doing so?  they miss the delicious bardo which transitions winter and spring
and their timeless, bittersweet battle dance.  ilg pities them.
this morning, beneath my mountain bike tires i saw struggling shoots of bright green which confused my choice of technical lines. i feel the haste and jealousy of upcoming spring…i miss winter already.   as my winter racing brother Scott S put it to me one autumn day as we both cringed over our road bikes on a Group Ride as we trained and waited for the first Sacred Snows to fall;  “Ilg?,” he shouted to me over a growing headwind,  “In my book?  There are only two seasons;  Winter and Waiting-For-Winter.”  i nodded my head in agreement and have never forgotten that quote.
with only a few mountain bike rides now pensively replacing my uphill/downhill skiing,  my ear re-accustoms itself to whirling screams of hunger-weaked Hummingbirds, creeks upsurging, and rubber-upon-dirt as I toss and turn my mountain bike down serpentine lines which seemingly monument my uphill sweat…
just yesterday I watched a Butterfly’s flight among delicate springs blossoming from overnight cold.
sugary dust has already cursed local single track.
climbing the hill, facing the direction of my love (the summit), i hear wild songs of spring as i pray by way of sweat to the Mountain Deities…i pray to see Bear, Mountain Lion, or even Bigfoot while i simultaneously pity those unAwakened outdoor athletes who interrupt wild songs of nature with iPods, gossip, or whatever…
yet, here arrives personal admittance:   a sworn winter-yogi by nature, i still wait patiently in my spiritual heart for the heaven of an eternal spring,
and each time i pedal upon or run along our treasured single tracks as i wait for the first snows to fall again come fall?
wild songs of spring which have never faded within my soul are strewn like child’s laughter from the very stomach of winter and affords an unanticipated flower of hope.
from spring?
grows dreams.
feeble ilg hopes you all spring your dreams…