Little by Little

I have been listening to the podcast of EkartTolle and Oprah going over his book, "A New Earth." I have had the complete Tolle writings for over a year now. But the first time I listened to the unbridged audio book as read by the author, i did not get it and I left it be. Oddly, that is something that Mr. Tolle writes about, that it will be when it is. As an antidisestablishmentariansist I resisted all things Oprah.
I read "A billion little Pieces" and laughed that she thought that was biographical. I thought that all the motorcyclist killing soccer moms could not have found a true guru. Unfortunately little by little I found my self swirling into the cesspool of spirituality lite fostered by pop-enlightenits, like Dr. Wayne Dyer and PBS. Even Suzi Orman now is part of the enlightenment group.
But I do like to listen to things non-musical when i run. I think that i have listened to a great amount of thought over the years and have found a few things to be common.

1. God. There is no way around it, there is a power greater than yourself. The sooner you get over the fact that you are insignificant compared to the universe, the sooner you can turn your kayak down water and start enjoying things.

2. Once you tap into that source that created everything, everything is at your use. Manifestation is real. Don't believe me? try it for your self.

3. The true test of character is the ability to remain kind in the face of hardship.

i once asked my sensei when we learned to shoot fireballs from our hands like in the video game "street fighter" he said with a straight face, "4th dan." He was a surfer , that studied accounting, and trained karate until he was a sensei. he had a wonderful daughter that was supposed to be an Olympic swimmer, and a boy that struggled with autism. I could have learned so much more from that man if I wasn't so consumed by alcoholism.

This brings me back to Tolle. Tolle is either an alcoholic, or has read the book. Every part of his book talks about the spiritual enlightenment that comes from recovering from alcoholism. But i think that this is more having to do with a theory of sameness. I asked sensei which was the best style, Shotokan, or Kung Fu. I had a match against a kung fuist in an open tournament. It boiled down to this, at the top levels it's all the same. You spend a lifetime throwing punches over and over, so that when the time came, that punch was thrown unconsciously when it was needed in the split second where it fit. Watching two yellow belts spar is not unlike a 2nd grade ballet recital. Whereas two masters strike like serpents and the match is over.

So possibly Ekart is not ripping off AA, but possibly he has found another path to the same shady spot in the field.

Now let me tell you what I discovered about myself the other day. Tolle was talking about pain bodies. That we each hold the collective unconcious pain bodies of our ancestors. American Indians, Jews, women, we all have an inate story. then there is the pain body that perhaps our parents gave to us as children. I am still dealing with mine, adn I suspect all alcoholics have to heal this at some point through the steps.

I was given another learning opportunity the other day. there was a young African American gentleman that came through. I would guess that he was born with a certain amount of pain, and that more was heaped upon him, until his conscious ego learned to thrive upon it, and it asked for more. So he was shot and paralyzed. Accidents don't just happen. I am not going to try to explain the pain body here, you'll have to read it for yourself, but I do see some manifesting here. His pain body was not done with him yet, now he has decubitus ulcers on his sacrum. Now i walk in. he is mean and nasty. And instead of felling pity or compassion, my first reaction is to harden, to label, to stop listening. i hate him. I cut him short. I label him a drug seeker, and I leave the room, sickened by him.

the next day i am running and listen about the pain body, and this kid comes to mind. His pain body awakened something in my pain body that just sent rockets up. Simply put in AA, "You spot it you got it." More aptly put, he got me out of the unconscious and put me straight into ego. Instead of giving him an empathetic, nonjudgmental ear, I gave him more food for his pain body.

Man, do I have a lot more growth to make.

More Pics of Tampa

So what I have here is a few different views of the skyline, and some of the art along bayshore. The graffiti is left by visiting crew teams and there is a lot of it along the river that leads to the bay. then a crew boat. And a house that i like. I don't know what happened, it used to have glass bricks, I like those.

Me fail English? that's unpossible!

Tampa by foot

Inspired by the squirrel, I brought my camera out on my last long run. Here's some shots:

First off, anyone see Extreme Makeover Tampa? Here is the house. It's nice, but nothing special, except that it was given to the family. I guess the insurance wasn't paying for their burned out home on the million dollar property. Here is a picture of a cruise liner coming down the channel between Davis Islands and Harbour Island. Yes these boats are huge. I've never been on one,but the wife promises next year. I've got a shot of the other side of the channel. Where all the hockey, baseball and football players live. Funny no teachers live there. Next is a shot of the hospital where I work. We are the safety net for all the indigent people of Tampa, I am one of 30+ Social Workers that work there. Below that is a shot of the Tony Gaspar, the ship that captured Tampa, and now we celebrate Gasparilla each year by getting drunk and pretending we are in NOLA. That's when I run a marathon. What so you think of when you think of Florida? Is it wide boulevards lined by palm trees with beautiful people roller blading and running? yup, that's exactly what it's like. Finally, A shot of one of three TGH helicopters landing near the Level 1 trauma center. the other one is waiting to take off.

Deena Kastor is cool

I had a bit of a surprise weekend. I was looking at some stuff on Thursday night and I saw that Deena Kastor and Brian Sell were going to be running in the Gate River Run USA 15K championship.

After watching "Spirit of a Marathon" my wife is now a Deena fan, and I like the Brooks/Hanson team, and was excited about Brian going to Beijing in August. So amazingly my wife propositioned that we drive to Jacksonville to watch the race. It is only a 3 1/2 hour trip. So off we drove after work and a three mile run of our own. We stopped for Sushi at Publix (I know, how american of us) and the torrential downpour started.

We ate sushi on the way, and made good time, but still got to Jacksonville Stadium about midnight. We put the seats flat in the Durango and fell asleep rather quickly. Note to self, get some shades for the windows. Peeing wasn't a problem at night, however when awoken by EMF "unbelievable" it dawned on me to park closer to portopotties next time we do something like this.

When they say America's biggest 15K they ain't kiddin'. There were about 12K people in this race. The start looked like Chicago, but about 1/4 the size in reality. insane. Deena was given a 5 minute head start with 24 other elite women, then the cannons sounded and 12K people chased after.

I thought that there would be a crowd of spectators considering the Olympic runners there, but I think we were the only Deena fans there. And Brian shaved, so I was not 100% sure it was him, I did not want to look like a total moron congratulating him and finding out it was a team mate. I will edit this post when I get the pics from my wife's camera. But needless to say, it was a bit of silly fun to drive up just to watch Deena kick ass, which she did.