The mystic, technically – Part 1

In there; there in me

The first mystical miles

Out on yet another run I became aware of myself differently in the world.

Awareness grown, fed by watching myself run thousands of kilometers through the world. 

Awareness in me had bloomed enough that day to reach my consciousness. 

I had run into the world. It had reached for me. A mountain shrub against my leg, we bristled;  an owl's wing-beat was the thrum of me; sunrise poured gold into me. I overflowed. My breathing breath-full, a flow bursting with scents and tastes of the plants that made and cleaned it, with supernovas that created it.

I found magnificence. Together we became perfect. The world, the universe, included me. Happy. Enchanted.

Religious Mystics

I knew about religious mystics. All religions have those who approach, connect directly, commune with the highest powers, with God. The mystic path parallels the one of prayer, praise, ritual, sacrifice, ceremony and more. 

I knew too that religious mystics all, in one or other way, go through a process of shedding or moving away from the everyday life, its chores, struggles and rewards. The mystics open themselves. Some ascetically, some as journey of cleansing and denial, others in whirling ways; the Rasta's smokily.

I knew then what I had found.

A wrought mystic, a path

Sweat, effort, grind, at times darkly, running essentialised me. A moving-just-me with minimum technology: pants, warming top if I needed it, shoes for my ticklish feet; an orange and apple until they were gone. Water I knew where to find.

Running lustily.Every-weekend three- or 4 hours runs, ties with the everyday stretched and broken. Also shorter runs, sweaty chest to breast of summer afternoon heat, hillside track, feet whisking grass. 

I understood the path:  run,watch and understand, run more and more with growing understanding of running, life and being.

Mystical miles. Marvellous. Simple, easily repeatable, ever-renewable, ever-enriching.

Those then

Were the first mystical miles, the crystal kilometers as they sparkled and flared. Were enough too. Yet there was to be more.

In the Logic of the Mystic, the beginning feeds its blossoming. 

 

Contextualiser

My running and experiences are not denominated religious actions and experiences. They have no claim to religion and no challenge either. It's just me in the majestic mystic.

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