this Place - we've talked about it; the place of build up, discomfort/suffering/pain - a threshhold, and at some point within it, people stop. it is technically physiological - lactic acid/aerobic threshold, VO2 max - supposedly - it gets called all kinds of things. and it scared you, at first, arriving there during a game or workout - your mind noticed the 'pain' and said panicky things about the burning in your legs and lungs: i can't breathe, this is not safe or good for me it hurts - too much. ohmygod i can't keep going i have to stop - too much - those sorts of things.
i have, in vague, loose ways - talked to people before about my experience with that place and how it is not a stopping point, but a place to begin.
'in the beginning ... the word.' i don't know - in writing, in humanness, i recognize a certain necessity or bondage to this belief, but this leaves off. i listen and hear 'god' listening to me (Mother Theresa unplugged) and that is all. i put god in quotes because i'm not sure one can use that word, free from connected ideas, definitions, which make it too small. maybe most words do this and so, past language, there's more room for .... beginnings. silence can be visited in seated meditation - it is and is absolutely not the same thing for me, though. i've gone into more detail sharing this with you than anyone else because it was relevant to your passion and i wanted to share my discovery that there is nothing to fear. Re-fashioned and related to training for stamina i explained how it is for me, something i seek - or make myself available to; i've learned that my mind comments are best dismissed and they will rattle, then pass. somewhere, past that snagging point is an opening.
we've talked about how sensation, when left unlabeled as 'pain' by thought and association, isn't - it isn't pain at all. you've found your own way to explore this and the discussion has continued. to me, it is just intense experience comprised of temperature, color, a bright but soft light. i think of descriptions i've heard involving near death experience and wonder. i close my eyes at those peak 'crisis' moments and look - my body is there in the effort elsewhere; my consciousness, my spirit hold in pure focus and calm. physical form transcends itself. the strength does not run out - the breath, the power does not come from me - it comes through me - from the Light - and is limitless - past the 'excruciating' point. i have grown disinterested regarding my thought's revolts that might pull me into panicked complaints after so many years of exploring this - beginning when i was around your age or a bit younger. i don't know how i stumbled upon this. it isn't something i sought or tried or worked for. it chose me. just like you. a willingness to 'go there' on most days has grown through understanding that it makes me 'better' in the rest of my life - and for you - than i might have been otherwise. the last words i say, inside myself, before leaving language behind involve gratitude and the inherent vision within blind faith.
'it' is different for you of course, and has changed for me a great deal since i was in my teens. you find your own way - your own experiences through/of spirit - they inform the rest of your life and vise versa - i don't understand your 'details,' but when we are training sometimes, i see it in your eyes - your face - you are there - you get it - and will continue this journey into places within that are the mark and grounding for your unique power.
and so, the symbol of flight and wings. that just became so impoortant to me over the past few weeks - ridiculously so - thinking about it much of the time - and for the blog post with images of wings - i looked for a pair for you - there were quite a few beautiful drawings and i could not decide. that's why i asked you; i pulled up the page and asked that you pick your wings - i showed you the ones i had considered. you didn't think this a strange question or ask why - you ultimately chose a very simple line drawing of smallish wings and i was ... disappointed (?). when i posted later that night, i almost inserted a more elaborate, different pair - the ones (i thought) you'd need to suit you. then - a bit later - i had to go back - i can be slow sometimes - and change them to the pair you chose. this is the pair i almost included for you:
not for you - of course. they look powerful, but - heavy. you chose a pair without baggage - simple streamlined light - economical (boorish word, but they are). you do not need the weight or size for power - you will supply it - the wings i chose suggest a bondage to them in themselves and you don't need to ever struggle with an ache to be free - of your wings. those you have now, suit you now and if they need to grow in any way - like your heart - they just will.
i've continued thinking about wings and your athleticism and ... birds - their flight experience. walking skyler in the 'blue time (as you call it)' - watching them in the coldish wind, i thought of this: do their wings reach that point in flight? burn hurt ache? i choose to imagine that yes/no. they are always 'in the beginning'; - and beyond - wordless pure experience. if those sensations are there, they are inseparable from the joy of being and flight and bird-ness. they purposefully choose to be in the sky when the wind is violent so they can find the angles to ride upslopes and currents and the invisible paths or air - flapping their wings for hours when they travel - against the wind. the burning in their wings - their spirit does not pick apart the experience to fret a sensation as painful or difficult or even intense. a fusion - intrinsically atoned to their being. they ARE flight and the ache isn't distinct from joy - ecstacy - openness (even these - more useless words - that fail in approaching the ineffable). you too, are flight and internal music- the earth falls away and the wind, regardless of mph force or direction, will never be against you; your wings will only understand its power as an ally.
i project a gob of hummanness onto the birds in this - i know - but it's what i've been thinking about and will probably mention in a sentence or two (believe it) before your next conditioning workout.
and finally, because of all this, i am again brought home to reconsider my own spirit. i cannot know that my own wings are always trapped. maybe, just in moments, during workouts (or work ins) - during long talks of listening with you - they unfold - i am not looking - i cannot see - and perhaps it is largely none of my business.
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