nov 2010

Crystal clear baby blue noise
Fireflies burning tiny holes in my caloused feet
As she touches and radiates
Maybe moreor nothing at all
Furnishing my insides
with permanent aniques
Polishing dull surfaces...
And the voices fade--
Dispurse in endless silver,
Quietly moaning in remeniscence of
love lost.

Scared children-- they stand aside pretentiously loud.

Expect the unexpected.

Because when you think you have it figured out, when you think you found your passion, when you think that "this is it"... life flips it upside down and strikes your with a series of surprises.

Blessed with my two feet, with one and a half legs that work, with heart that beats, with eyes that see the magnificence of amazing life, with beauty which is indescribabale, with strength, determination and passion which have no bounds or limits.

happiness is what I found in my journey. Happiness of unexpected.

crazy

Another "you are crazy" compliment yesterday when I mentioned that I run 3.5 miles to and 3.5 miles from work.
If "sanity" is defined by laziness, by taking the gifts of having an able body, the opportunity to inhale and exhale at your leisure, involuntarily, the gifts of sight, smell, touch, the gifts of love for this beauty of a world for granted... If "sanity" means all those things... of not knowing and not wanting to, then, damn it, I would rather be "crazy".

Tonight is full moon... when the silhouettes of palm trees turn to dancing shadows, when each step is a new journey, when each breath gives you wings, when your cup that is filled to the rim is overflowing with beauty, when your heart explodes and shatters into thousands of stars and floats up closer and closer to her magnetic hypnotizing eyes.

out of all places... or why I run.

Feeling the asphalt and gravel under my feet again. My heart is screaming from joy as I start plugging away up Pali road, passing one of the Heaiaus on my way.

My IT band, my left quad, my knee cap, my left hip flexor are all being pulled up and pinched by the stainless steel screws and plate but the pain is so settle compared to the explosion of my soul at the moment. I AM RUNNING.

Rolling hills, dips,downhills and even a dead boar on a side of Kapaa Quarry as I am preparing myself for the last 3 miles of this run. Trees hovering over narrow road with no shoulder but plenty of work trucks and beautiful smells.

I pass another Heaiau and pretend I am here 40 years ago where all the roads were this small and swamps surrounded the area, cars were few and far between, banyan trees spreading their fingers, luring you into their world.

I take a turn, inhaling thousands of hibiscus flowers at once. Running on a narrow ledge of brush and gravel. I am content. I am running in this moment. This breath. This exhale is all that exists for me. The touch of my foot and the heat of the ground is all I can feel.

Suddenly, there is a green station wagon which slows down and stops right next to me. Oh, a bald move from my secret fans. Window rolls down as I continue leaping forward. "Out of all the roads, this would be the last one I would chose for running"- pair of giant pearl earrings, red lipstick and flowered haole face says to me with a smile.
I turn my head. My chicago instinct yells: "Get the Ef out of my face and mind your own efin business, you white dummy."
Yet, my content island self utters the following:" Well, you are not running, are you? you are DRIVING! See ya!". I smile really big and wave as her jaw drops and she speeds away into the horizon. I take a huge leap forward over a giant cut down stump of a tree.

Many questions arise as a surf boy drives past me in VW bus with a long board strapped to the roof top, giving me a huge smile and a raised eye brow.
My spirit is calm again and I wonder what I find so compelling in "out of all places" to take the most beautiful road, the most difficult journey, the exhausting trip down many roads less traveled by others, to follow the passion for real freedom, where nothing stands between the heat of your body and the energy of this earth?!

I suppose that after all the pain which I caused my own self, the one thing which will never change is my longing for that connection with the ground, the ground which heals your deepest wounds, the roads which are endless, the journey during which you discover the darkest and deepest fears and find most simplest and most pure joy.

There is no longer the obsession with more, but rather the uniqueness of each moment. Each moment that my foot strikes the ground. Each moment my lungs feel like collapsing. Each moment my blood pumps into my heart. Gratitude for being free to have this connection with most sacred places in my soul, most sacred places of this ground...
Journeys, which "out of ALL places", others would even fathom to start.

Definition by default

Default logic was proposed by Raymond Reiter, canadian computer scientist and logician. We have programmed ourselves to come to quick conclusions, a lot of the times, and assumptions not only about others but also about ourselves.

I plead guilty. I judge myself every second, every breath, every blink of an eye. Sometimes I judge others without being aware of it. Something snapped during my yoga practice this morning.

I took my time to unwind after it at the beach, embracing the nature, submerging my heart and my head. The definitions of myself which i repeat constantly and silently have surfaced. So often I define myself as so and so and feel the need to fill those positions. I am a runner. I am a warrior. I am tough. I am unbreakable. I can not be hurt. I am not weak. All those nouns and adjectives are then linked with definitions: some harmful, some strong and upright but mostly completely unnecessary.

Letting go of what is "known", what is "established", something you are so used to that you become your own robot. Functioning versus living. The challenge is most exciting.

299,792,458 metres per second

My brain often moves with the speed of light and for the longest time I made it my priority to physically catch up to that until I realized how pointless this race is.
The problem with the rat race, as famous quote goes, is that even if you win, you are still a rat.

In yoga, my instructors often say that there is no competition. It's just you and your mind and body. You are pushing only as far as your mind/body allows and accepting and breathing... One move at a time.

It's what I am learning here, on the island: to slow down. The noise of street, of neighbors, of barking dogs, of moving trucks, even of rain pounding on the sidewalk as palm trees whisper loudly by my window... all that fades and it's just me and my mind.

Things are always hard, always challenging. They always have been- ever since I remember myself. Last month or two, I have been saying things out loud:"what is the message? what am I supposed to do?". The challenges became, what I thought, impossible and I saw no way out. The answer was to not "do" anything but rather to accept, wait and learn. Even what seemed impossible at the time ended up being a great lesson and a rewarding obstacle.

85 degrees of awakening.

This morning instead of my usual "go go go run walk bike climb lift" hectic chaos of thoughts, I woke up calmly realizing that it's yoga morning.

Yoga @ Aloha Yoga Kula is a hard experience for me. Each time it's a battle to get out of the door, knowing how painful it may be for me physically and mentally, mostly mentally. I bite my lip not to cry in the middle of the class, or go into a panic attack during savasana. The outcome is most magnificent as usual. I re-programmed my body and instead of a hike and some grueling hours in the beating 85 degree sun ( though cool and breezy), my mind turned to a 3.2 mile run and some potting/planting/weeding of my little garden followed by hours of opera listening on 88.1fm while crawling around outside in my bikini.

Most grateful, aware, focused and healing...
Ultra T

Disclaimer: No REAL beer was actually given to the plant babies.

backwards. forwards.

7 weeks post surgery. Long long weeks. I seem to make good progress of getting back into shape and then I slide back into disappointment. It's harder than I thought to go through mental and physical changers alone. Of course, I feel the energy of few close friends and my immediate family, but bottom line I am here alone and only I can change my way of thinking, acting, reacting and evolving

At this point, physically I am getting back to gym 2-3 days/week for stair climbing, core and upper body session. I ride to the gym 5 miles there/5 back. Saddle road continues to kick my ass with the steep inclines and rolling hills. It's a challenge just to get to the gym some days. Other days, I am walking 3 miles and add light biking or a 2-3 mile run at the end of the day. I found out that running first thing in the morning is very painful because my body is super stiff. On weekends or sometimes during the week if I feel up to it I climb some mountains by my house, usually Keolu hills.

Mentally, I am still sorting through the "trash" in my mind. I have to say, I am proud of myself for really focusing and tuning out the "noise". I have settled on no tv, haven't gone out to a bar really since Chicago ( 7 long months ago!), picked up some books to read at library and continue to do research for going back to school. In fact, I applied to start taking pre req to grad school courses at local community college.

Yes, sometimes it feels that all I am doing is backtracking through my memories, reliving my mistakes over and over, but I am learning and training and it takes practice to become good at anything. I should know this :)

Training of the mind

As I was making my way up Mokapuu road on my chicago schwinn *grin*, I realized something. I have been battling with the idea of how is it possible for me to move forward mentally and away from the insecurities, fears, emotional traumas of the past.Words of my friend echoed in my soul as i peddled and peddled, nearly stuck and not able to turn over. "your mind is just a muscle. you trained your body to do impossible, now it's time to train you mind to do just the same."

It hit me.

Wow! "No shit!", I thought. I did exactly that. It was easy for me to build up my stamina, my endurance, now my strength. My body is trained to recover fast from most serious injuries. I am nearly 70 or 80% after a little over a month of getting a giant plate and screws inserted in my femur. After my muscles were cut in half, I am already able to walk up to 10 or 12 miles, bike 25 miles, hike and swim a little, lift weights as if nothing happened.

But EVERYTHING happened. It's just that I trained my body little by little, pushing harder and harder to overcome.

It is the same thing with my brain, my mind, my soul. So much has been done to them, so much damage and so much trauma was caused both by my environment and myself. It's a long road ahead, but it only has to be as long as I make it. I can drag it out, run away from it, or I can face it and deal, be aware, work through all those things. Little by little training my mind and soul to RECOVER just as quickly as my body does now.

This is very exciting as I continue healing physically, I am now ready to heal emotionally as well.

Happy thoughts..and much aloha

flying mouse and island living.

Journey of a thousand, a million, an eternity of steps is unfolding most beautifully, perhaps, most painfully at times, yet in the end, with most amazing outcomes.

The next chapter of my book is writing itself without any help of it narrator. The thoughts and memories flooding in. I am unveiling slowly and carefully that which has been silenced my entire life. Amazing people, angels in my life, so few and so rare... how blessed I am to find out who they are and how deep do I feel my connection with them now, how carefully do I listen to each one of their words.

Numbing was nice. Numbing myself was easy. Running my body into the ground was easy. Uncovering and dealing and being aware hurts more than the stainless steel plate and all the damn screws put together.. all the rest of the scars on my body... the scariest moments of physical pain do not hurt this much.

In happiness, in excitement but in stillness and with much aloha...

Forever
Tone