I don't run, as a general rule.
I don't know why, it's just that running never appealed. I watch people run and wonder what has gotten into them. Don't get me wrong, I'd run if I needed to get away from someone or something, but even then I'd probably weigh the need vs. the expected demand for a few seconds. Its odd though, when I think on it. After all,
I'm an animal and running is a God given function of survival.
Yesterday, after reading too much news, I found myself on the base of a hill at Forest Park looking up wearing my nearest to running attire wondering what I was doing there. There went my legs, they were in motion, on their own accord.
I managed an instant ache in my left side. The sun felt glorious and my lungs engaged with my oxygen rich surroundings in a way I had forgotten all about. I needed to make NO effort to distract myself from my side
pain
, my brain was suddenly in a drug-like state of focus and what happened next was a bit sci-fi. After about 30 mins (AND almost all at once) my grief washed over me, then alien like clarity flushed into my brain, and then I felt this internal power bubble up; you know it, we all have it inside, lying in wait, for its right moment, to come out.
Answers were under my feet in the squishy mud
.
I was squishing silver out of that mud and injecting it into my brain and heart making linings that shimmered paths forward.
E.U.R.E.K.A! NOW I get it, why people run!
I dared not stop.
I went on to pass families hanging out, snapping sticks, talking to each other, unearthing sticks, counting minutes they were out, walking with sticks, asking if they should turn back, swinging sticks, not turning back, pointing with sticks, giving each other "good job" thumbs up, digging with sticks, laughing at each other, and taking pictures - of sticks.
It was like that Simpson's episode back in '82 where the power went out on a summer day, their video games stopped, and TVs when off, and all the kids went outside, rubbed the sun into their eyes and played.
My lungs burned, my breath quickened and deepened, and I expanded. Not just my lungs either. I expanded in the - well - Biblical sense. I felt into the oneness that has brought all the world together in a collective effort to survive and to endure. For once we are all joined together in a common denominator.
Its tragically beautiful. There is power in this pause.
In these times we might ask ourselves...
"What would Lincoln say?"
Maybe he'd say something like...
"It is rather for us, the living, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take an increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here, highly resolve, that these dead shall not have died in vain and that this world - under God, shall have a new birth of oneness, and that connection - by the people, of the people, and for the people - shall not perish from this earth."
- Or -
"What would Elsa say?" Maybe she'd sing-say...
"Do the next right thing.
There is an old proverb discovered by chemists and borrowed by NDs,
"like dissolves like."
In this case, I'd apply that rule. If nature is here to challenge us, let's meet nature with nature.
If nature can make these powerful bugs, so too can it make a stand against them. It's an invitation to evolve. Nature is powerful medicine. Go unlock it.
For now, go use your lungs, outdoors, in the trees, together (yet kind of separate). Use them good and plenty. That is my best advice.
Move.
Cry.
Get fresh air.
Connect.
Talk.
Eat earth rich nutrients.
Listen.
Eat good bugs.
Drink clean water.
Sleep.
Nature bathe.
Sing.
Run.
Burn wood.
Yell.
Play music.
Breathe.
Godspeed,
Yours in Health,
Dr. Nadene Neale, ND
