Hi,
And welcome.
My name is Greg.
I have found spiritual practices to be really helpful for my running.
And perhaps even more so,
I have found running to be one of the most insightful spiritual practices.
So whatever your motivation,
I hope you find this helpful.
A primary objective of my spiritual practice,
And maybe yours,
Is to remain grounded.
To remain connected to the source,
To God,
To the universe.
And this is both literal,
Being on the ground.
I love to walk or run in bare feet.
It's also metaphorical.
To be connected,
To be humble.
The word humility comes from the same word as soil.
Humous,
Dirt.
So when we're humble,
We're actually connected and aware.
So I invite you to come for a run.
You might get your shoes or go in bare feet,
Whatever suits you.
And I'll lead us through a series of grounding practices that you might incorporate with your everyday running.
Let's head out.
We begin by noticing what's going on.
How are you feeling?
How are you moving?
How much freedom is there in your range of motion?
Are you excited for your run?
What restrictions do you notice?
We're not trying to fix anything.
We're just trying to pay attention.
You might consider running to be a relationship.
A relationship between the self,
That's you,
And the ground.
The relationship between self and ground is what determines our speed.
That same relationship determines how quickly we fatigue.
One can argue it even determines how we feel.
So we pay attention to that.
We pay attention to that relationship.
It's the ground that both receives you and sends you.
As the ground receives us,
Some of our muscles contract and thereby store energy.
And as they release that energy,
As our joints extend,
The ground sends us away.
It's a receiving and ascending and it happens incredibly quickly with each foot strike.
Receive send,
Receive send,
Receive send.
And this happens thousands of times over a long run.
Even over a relatively short run of a couple of kilometers,
It still happens thousands of times.
You might imagine that receive and send component of the relationship to be analogous to a relationship with a divine entity.
Call it God.
In my Christian tradition,
We tend to anthropomorphize God,
Which has its pros and cons.
But we imagine a God that receives and sends.
Receives as a caring parent and sends.
Also as a caring parent.
The ground has that same analogy.
It receives us.
And if it had the capacity,
It might even care for us.
And then it sends us on our journeys.
It sends us so that we can grow and change and be the most whole and loving version of ourselves possible.
The ground receives and the ground sends.
We take in whatever information we can about the ground.
We pay attention to the terrain that we're on.
Uphill downhill flat.
We pay attention to its surface,
Is it smooth or soft?
You might consider the experience of that ground over its billions of years of existence.
Who has been this way before?
Which people have traveled that ground?
How has that ground supported humans?
How is it supporting you now?
Which non-human animals have traveled that ground?
Which plants might have grown there?
Which plants are growing there?
Maybe you're running on soil that has something growing in it like grass.
As your foot strikes the ground,
Consider all the forms of life that have been on that part of the earth before.
Imagine yourself connecting with all of those forms of life.
Insects,
Plants,
Other animals,
Other people.
Imagine your being connecting with their being.
Let's zoom our attention in to the scale of the particle of the soil that is part of the ground that you're running on.
Maybe you're running on asphalt or on a concrete sidewalk or some other surface,
Maybe a track.
Let's say you're on a sidewalk though.
You're applying a force as you land into the sidewalk,
Which applies a force into the gravel end of the sidewalk,
Which applies a force eventually into the earth,
Into the ground.
Imagine that force through action and reaction is returned to you.
Think about those tiny particles of the ground that receive and send you.
Imagine the grain of sand and its relationship to its neighboring grain of sand.
Imagine the water molecules tied up in that soil and how they're responding and reacting.
Now imagine your steps create a heat map.
As your foot makes contact with the ground,
The heat map has a red footprint.
Maybe it's even white for hot.
And then as your foot leaves that spot,
It cools over a few seconds.
So each step appears and then slowly disappears as you leave that part of the earth.
Even if you're in shoes,
Imagine those heat prints as your foot.
Imagine the earth activated by your presence as you land.
And imagine the earth cooling off as you go along your way.
Over time,
Your presence is vital to the experience of that chunk of earth.
And as you go,
You've basically left no trace.
The relationship between you and the ground changes entirely once you're gone.
And yet that relationship remains.
You remember it.
It's not likely that it remembers you.
Although it is possible to leave a mark in some way.
And both you and it are forever changed with each step.
And in that sense,
The earth transforms you.
I wonder if the earth can transform you into the most loving version of yourself,
Such that you might exude kindness,
That you might be a blessing unto all whom you meet,
And that you might participate in new life,
Whatever that might look like.
As you continue running,
Continue paying attention to the relationship between you and the ground,
Between you and the earth.
May that be a relationship of abundance.
I hope you enjoy your run.
And I look forward to connecting again sometime soon.
