A Warning of the Coming Plague -- The Eyeball Smallpox
Published on March 12th, 2012 @ 02:42:45 pm , using 1673 words, 346 views
There's another version of this letter that I'm sending to the Northside Family Practice Medical Center as a thank you for their excellent response to my very recent medical emergency. This is the real version.
Yesterday morning I woke up with a tiny scratchiness in the corner of my left eye. That's not unusual these days, because about three years ago, in the middle of the night, I somehow scraped my left thumbnail across my eye socket and damaged the tear duct. Ten minutes later I did it again, one of the worst repeated accidental self-inflicted injuries I've ever experienced. Took me a week of walking around with a bandanna over the eye to be able to see out of it again.
Since then, it sometimes dries out a bit at night, as though the lid doesn't close fully over the tear duct and the little ball of flesh there dries and hardens. I've learned to deal with this, using expert medical advice, eyedrops, and the other things you do when you're sick and don't have much money. Until yesterday, all had gone well.
Throughout the day, no matter what I did to ease the pain, the eye got worse. Towards evening it was so bad I couldn't function, but I still thought it would recover if I just kept using the hot compresses and rest time that had always worked before. By midnight it was clear I wouldn't be able to drive to work today, let alone get through a shift, and I laid awake the rest of the night just hoping to see some improvement as red waves of pain flourished around me in the blackness and my eye alternately burned as though scalded with acid and stabbed me as if trying to excrete shards of broken glass.
At four a.m. I called my shift manager to explain I wouldn't be in for work. Normally I'd try to talk my way out of having to go to town and see the doctor, because I'm an honest person and don't stay home sick if I'm not. I don't need a note to verify I'm ill, I'm ill if I say I'm ill and I usually get better faster if I stay home. Today I said, "I'm calling the doctor as soon as they open and I will try to drive myself to town." What I didn't say was that if I hadn't been able to see to drive, I'd have gone next door to my neighbor Louie's, who I hardly speak to at all, busted his door down and dragged him to his truck to drive me to town. Or I'd have blindfolded myself and walked in the direction of town, if I had accidentally killed Louie. This thing f______g hurts. It hurts so bad that now I understand how some of my ancestors back in the Plains nations thought that shoving an arrow down their own throats was a better deal than the smallpox. Yep, I get it now, mystery solved.
want the medicine?
At seven a.m. my eye was swelled nearly shut, with alternate rings of purple and red swellings around a bright red socket and a disgusting scummy pink eyeball. Every time I leaned over, long strings of snot ran out my nose. At the rate this progressed I estimated my eyeball would explode at ten minutes past noon and the spores would be released to infest the rest of the world. I called the clinic to ask when they'd open and listened politely and calmly to their answering machine. I called them again a minute after they opened.
I've been to your clinic several times over the years, I said, but I haven't been sick for quite awhile and I think none of the doctors I know are there any more. I wonder if I could just come down and sit in the lobby and hope for some sympathy? The nurse laughed and gave me an appointment for 9:15. Suddenly she was the best person in the world to me, that literally sounded like the greatest thing ever.
Apparently not many people here are sick these days, it's been a mild winter without much illness and the lobby was empty except for me and somebody who looked like they were feeling lots better than me. I took the clipboard full of forms and sat down to fill them out, leaning forward until the weight of my eyeball shifted a little in its perch, and screamed twice. I kept writing, noting all the things my relatives died of and all the things that had tried to kill me over the years, as well as lying about most of my bad habits in order to save time and get to the root of the problem. Anywhere I could fit it in, I would write EYEBALL or INFLAMED EYEBALL. Father did not die of INFLAMED EYEBALL. Mother, 90, does not suffer from EYEBALL problems.
Before I could finish, the nurse came over to question me about my pain level. I was wearing a patch over my eye because that felt a tiny bit better than exposing it to horrible, brilliant searing light from the overcast gray morning sky and the dim recesses of the lobby. To explain my problem, I took the patch off and smiled in her direction. She said, Ewwww! and took three steps back. Smart lady.
"On a scale of one to ten, how would you -- "
"Nine!" I said. "Its a damn nine! I've had broken bones that didn't hurt like this hurts!" Try to tear your eyeball off a lamppost every time you look to right or left and you'll get the general idea. I'd have rated it ten except there's probably something worse, like the moment before four horses tear your body into four distinct pieces. To your brain, your eyeballs are the biggest things you have, and this f_____g hurts lots.
In the examining room, the doctor also pulled up short and looked like he'd rather keep some distance from this possibly contagious problem. As doctors all do these days, he was careful to make sure I understood that in spite of his many years of medical school and professional experience, he wasn't really certain what this was. He did write me a prescription for magical eyedrops and said that if it didn't help within a day I'd have to come back. Cripes, if it didn't work within a day, the medics would be dragging me in by the heels with my head bumping on the sidewalk. A day's good, I don't want to wait longer than a day. He was no Dr. Fowler, our family's country doctor when I was a kid in the Ozarks and you could get anything diagnosed with certainty for five bucks or an invitation to a good Sunday dinner, with chicken and pie. Now, no doctor can diagnose appendicitis without two CAT Scans. Oh well, you take what you can get, and I am grateful for the help.
All the medical people today think they have to apologize for the bill if you don't have insurance, and offer a way for you to delay payment and spend more money later. Lady, I have cash. If this works, it's worth the money. If not, the estate lawyers will be paying my bill.
Pharmacies are just the same. The young woman standing with a bored expression behind the pharmacy desk at Walmart eyed the bill for the tiny one-inch tall bottle of eyedrops, half filled, and then looked at me sadly.
"Are you sure you want this?" she asked. "It's $80."
The reason I am in not in prison or locked in an asylum somewhere is that about 12 years ago -- no, I guess it was eight -- I learned to answer stupid questions politely, with a yes or a no. In the old days, I would have said what I was thinking.
"Damn it, lady!" I would have said. "I'll pay cash! I'll pay credit! Hell, I'll wrassle you for it if I have to! Gimme the damn eyedrops or I'll take this eye patch off, I swear I'll do it!" Then she would have run screaming and as security swarmed me I'd have headed out the door with an armload of useful medications. Those were the old days. Today I just said, Yes. I give money. You give medicine. Deal. My people, friends to your people, always and forever.
In the car in the parking lot I desperately applied two drops of the elegant elixir, and immediately knew it would work. Sometimes you just know it will work. Sometimes you know it won't. This time they gave me the real medicine, something they called "Generic." I tried to read the name of it but the print's too small for me to read with one eye, through a blur of snotty tears. Applying those drops felt like deactivating the self-destruct mechanism on the starship Enterprise with only ten seconds to spare. Suddenly the klaxons stopped blaring and the corridors cleared of yellow flares of smoke and flame. "Countdown, is halted! Eyeball explosion, canceled!"
I can put aside the merciful swallowing arrows for now at least, the crisis is passing. The eye still hurts, but it's only an eight on the Richter Scale of Pain. I can't even remember what a nine feels like, now. I got half an hour of sleep, waking up to yank my eyeball loose twice from being pasted to the dying pustules on the inside of my eyelids, and that actually felt lots better. Whatever this is, you don't want it.
Like me, you should be grateful, and send a "Thank you!" to the Northside Family Practice Medical Center and the wonderful people there. Thank you! wonderful people! Thank you for not letting my eyeball explode.
Permalink
It’s 2012. You can’t understand how incredible that seems to me. I’m one of those people whose entire life has revolved around this year, and what might happen this year. As far as I can tell, that’s why I was put here on this planet at this time. I have the marks, I’ve had the visions, I received the prophecies, and I’ve taken the actions my spiritual contacts have recommended. Because of that, I’m living beside the eastern gateway of one of America’s five Golden Cities. With Alice’s help, we built that gateway ourselves, the end product of a long chain of visions and dreams and “communications” that brought me here to what some call the Golden City of Malton.
As a young boy I read a book about the Hopi Prophecies, the signs of the next Earth Changes, and I just hoped I’d live long enough to actually see them and find out if it was real. I didn’t know then that I was personally involved. The strange things that happened to me then, and later, took decades to fall into place and make sense. I’ve seen much of what I dreamed about, back then and decades later, come true. The poles do seem to be melting. The weather does seem to be changing. Two buildings on Manhattan Island did fall down, and George Bush’s War did go awry.
Princess Nakamura of Japan's royal family claims to have opened her third eye and made contact with extraterrestrials as well as an ancient reptilian civilization living deep with the earth. She predicts three days of complete darkness beginning on December 21st, 2012, in conjunction with a total power outage.
But you know what? Even after all of this, after seeing the maps sent through my dreams that showed me the world after the change, and after the dreams that told me where I should go during the time of change, and after moving there and finding out that others saw the same maps and had the same dreams, I’m skeptical. I would hope that 2012 turns out to be uneventful in terms of cosmic history. I’m not hoping for excitement now, and I thoroughly understand the meaning of the old Chinese curse, “May you live in exciting times!” No more exciting times for me, please, I’ve had enough. Status quo, please. May the government hedge the national bets somehow and just keep things fairly normal until I die. I do not want to live through times any more exciting than the times I’ve had already. Give me ten or twenty years of relative stagnation.
areas that did prove especially important
in my own life. Other areas also contributed,
but it's a pretty eerie selection of the
top five. Photo clipped from an advertisement
for the detailed map.
Officially, we’re being told that we’ve misunderstood the Mayan Prophecy and nothing is actually going to happen this year. I hope that’s true, but I went through the Time of Warning and was one of the people who received the Warning, in explicit detail. That part unfolded as foretold by the old Seers. We received that message. Not all of us, of course, but those of us with the right perceptions got it. Princess Nakamura of Japan got it. Lori Toye got it. I got it. Lots of other people got it. We received the message about the earth changes and the safe zones independently, not knowing other people got the same information. Individually, people called us crazy, and only after many years did we realize we weren’t. Other people got the same message. That’s makes us not crazy, just perceptive.
About ten years ago I received instructions that told me to move to a certain location in the U.S. and build a gateway structure. I thought that was crazy stuff, but by then I was used to talking to nonphysical beings and I just explained to them all the impossible things that would have to happen to actually put me in that position. Somebody apparently listened, because all those impossible things happened. I moved to Malton, one of North America's five "golden city" safe areas, and built the eastern gateway. Was it the right thing to do? I have no idea. I didn't even know it was a safe area other people recognized. I just dreamed about it as an island of safety in a sea of chaos and moved here when I met the people that made it possible. Malton is supposed to be a very positive area full of wonderful energies rotating in a vortex several hundred miles wide around a point on the Illinois/Indiana border just west of Terre Haute, centered on a little town called Mattoon in Illinois. Can I say that I’ve detected those energies? or felt anything particularly benevolent about this area? No, I can’t. Please, those of you who talk of such things must visit Terre Haute and see the place for yourself. Let’s be realistic about this. It’s Terre Haute. It’s one long parking lot and shopping mall. Effingham isn't much different, and I'm not at all curious about Mattoon.
Oh well, I’m here, and if I can stay alive and solvent long enough I can see what happens, if anything. Actually, I don’t have to wait very long, because one of the main events of 2012 comes along on April 9th, according to an algorithm derived from the hexagrams of the I Ching. That algorithm charts the important events of history, and comes to a zero point and a definite end on December 21st, in harmony with the Mayan Calendar. April 9th marks the peak event of the year and everything goes downhill, literally, from there. If nothing happens, I will assume I’m in the clear. If Israel bombs Iran on April 9th, that totally sucks. Might actually be the end of the world.
the course of human history, drawing to a close on December 21st, 2012.
Photo clipped from the graphic output for 2012 at
http://www.fractal-timewave.com/timewave_calculator.php#content
What actually concerns me more is weather. My old dreams focused on the poles and the melting icecaps. A lot of that has come true, despite my disbelief in it. The weather is a little crazy these days, and scientists are finding evidence in ancient cores that the changes previously thought to take place over hundreds of years actually have happened in as few as eight years. A government sponsored study of the possible effects of rapid climate change seems to accurately describe the weather patterns we’re seeing right now. That’s more in accord with my own visions, of a continent partly inundated by water, with missing coastlines and a new inland sea. I can’t see anything good about that, really, in spite of the Golden City locations remaining above water.
As a Heyoka, I got a different view of all this, not just a message about a glorious new world and the hope of self-sustaining communities and a new harmonious existence here. As Heyoka, I jumped into the middle of things, traveling into the possible futures for direct experience of all that. I saw ruined cities, cities devoid of people, enclaves of survivors living behind barricades, people eating people just to survive. Didn’t look all that harmonious and self-sustaining to me, but maybe I didn’t travel far enough ahead.
As a regular person, I just hope nothing happens. Status quo! More status quo! Leave the Next Earth to the next generation, please, I just want to grow my garden and go fishing now and then. On the other hand, as a person with curiosity and imagination I want to know if the aliens really will come. I had those dreams, too. This year, I get to find out if it actually happens.
Purported archaeological discoveries in ancient Mayan temples lead one scientist to speculate that alien ships will emerge in our solar system at the end of 2012, through solar storms and sunspots. Is it crazy? or a description of instantaneous travel between black holes and stars?
Links of interest:
I Get Letters! and Try to Reply Honestly
Published on February 28th, 2012 @ 08:29:12 am , using 708 words, 43 views
Today I got an email from someone asking for my help in finding a missing person, lost in the Balkans somewhere, and when I tried to respond my email bounced back to me. Maybe they don't empty their inbox and wonder why no one talks to them. I disabled the comments feature here ages ago because of all the spam I get, so I'll just include my reply here, in more general terms, in the hopes that Gabi will see it. But the answer applies to nearly everyone who writes to me for psychic assistance or technical advice.
First, I don't charge for my services. My services usually don't turn out to be very useful, although quite a few people have affirmed they turn out to be real. If that's an odd answer, I can't help it. I doubt that anyone else, even if they have a professional service and high fees, does any better. I would definitely steer away from anyone who charges a fee for any of this. Remote work isn't a scientific process, even though some have tried to make it conform to those standards. Sometimes things happen and sometimes they don't, despite your best efforts and intentions.
I don't believe that in ordinary cases any of my abilities can cause predictable effects anywhere in the world or the universe. To do something miraculous there must be miraculous need for the work, and most ordinary tasks don't qualify. Rarely, as a heyoka, I do get calls for that kind of work, but it as yet has not come from other people. I think my effective range is limited to about 30 miles from home, for practical ordinary human purposes, because I know much more about the details of that 60 mile diameter area than I know about the topography and population of remote Guatemala, just for an example. I might visit Guatemala now and then, but I would find it very difficult to pinpoint my location except by major terrain features. Around here, I know roads and trees and rivers and communities. That helps a lot.
If somebody went missing locally, I might pick up some clues from visions and be able to go check them out. If somebody goes missing on the other side of the planet, I might pick up information that's totally useless because it isn't remarkable and I don't know that area and can't follow it up. There are practical limitations to the shamanic system, which seems designed to work well locally but to provide nothing more than interesting information about distant places. At least that's so in practical terms.
Gabi, if you're serious about hiring somebody, I suggest you visit the Ed Dames Remote Viewing Community at http://www.rvcommunity.net/viewforum.php?f=8 and look for free help first. They practice a more scientific method that I don't believe in any longer, but it might work.
I get interesting letters from people that often seem like an attempt to gather information that will make me look like a con man. People write to me for my opinion on ancient artifacts, for instructions on how to become heyoka, and on occasion for advice about time travel. I know about as much about ancient Indian artifacts as I know about the modern ones I make myself. You can't learn to become heyoka, it's something the spirits choose you to do. About all you can do to foster time travel is hang around places where it happens. That's the best I can do to answer those questions.
Somebody did write awhile back to ask me my opinion of whether an old axe was a Scottish war axe or a carpenter's axe. Being half Indian and half Scot I know that answer. It's at least both. If you're Scottish and somebody comes at you with violent intent you'll pick up whatever's handy and hit them with it. So that carpenter's axe is a Scottish war axe, and that rock over there, that's a Scottish war rock. Don't mess with a Scotsman.
Battle Los Angeles: A Ripping Good Yarn
Published on March 26th, 2011 @ 01:08:49 pm , using 957 words, 1920 views
during California's newest war. Photo courtesy of
http://www.battlela.com/
In outer space, no one can hear you purr. . . .
Don't go see Battle: L.A. unless you're not embarrassed to have a good time. It's full of flaws in logic, plot and acting but it's a big movie in terms of action and special effects. Battle: Los Angeles breaks the mold of the usual disaster epic by going straight to the good stuff without wasting time on character development and story background. This movie is just a bunch of Marines figuring out how to kill something new and challenging. If you can't enjoy it from that viewpoint go eat a hamburger instead.
Battle L.A. stars Aaron Eckhart as the guilt-ridden combat vet Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz; Bridget Moynahan as Michele the hot civilian chick whose sole task is to adore the heroic Nantz; Michelle Rodriguez as tough hot babe Tech Sergeant Elena Santos, the Rambella of the Air Force; and Ramon Rodriguez as 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez, victim of the most cliche'd role in military history. I recognized absolutely no one in the entire cast, although for a moment I thought I knew Eckhart from a role in Star Trek Voyager. Nope, that's not him. I immediately felt a good vibe from Eckhart/Nantz, however, since in the movie's opening minutes Nantz plows along the beach for his morning run, huffing and sweating while a group of younger Marines leaves him in the dust at a speed that allows them a normal conversation. Cripes, I hate it when that happens.
a non-combat
Air Force occupa-
tional specialty
ever produced.
http://www.battlela.com/
Director Jonathan Liebesman wastes no time getting to the good part of the story. Instead of following the old Irwin Allen pattern of at least an hour of brutal introduction to characters and the reasons we're supposed to care if they live or die, Liebesman compresses that human sympathy section into about ten minutes, giving us a brief glimpse into the personal lives of modern Marines. Gosh, the Marine Corps looks like such a friendly and informal place, it's just a bunch of nice fellows and girls having fun in training. In the background we get constant updates over the local TV channels regarding the mysterious arrival of clusters of meteorites, coincidentally hitting the water offshore from the world's greatest coastal population centers.
If the human race doesn't see an attack like that coming we deserve all the hacking and slashing and blowing up that we get. In this story no one seems to realize what's happening, even after half of L.A. goes up in flames. With all the combat-ready hoopla these soldiers spout you'd think a platoon of infantry would know enough to spread out and stop talking in the combat zone, but there's none of that elementary tactical wisdom here. Along with superior firepower, the alien invaders also mastered the simpler things like ducking and taking the high ground. Our boys have to learn that through O.J.T.
new things to break.
Photo courtesy of http://www.battlela.com/
There are so many technical issues in this movie that I will only skim a few. The basic premise for the invasion, for example, is that these interstellar invaders need liquid water to fuel their ships, and Earth is a rare jewel, twinkling through the darkness with the blue hue of mostly water. Never mind that an alien race with this sort of technology could find all the water they need in space, and probably would have figured out how to melt it by now -- everyone just accepts this pitiful explanation with a shrug and an OK. They're Marines, they kill stuff for a living, and they leave the big thinking to the guys on TV. Whoever wrote this story was in a hurry and just tossed in the water theory without much critical effort. I prefer another explanation, that these stalwart alien soldiers have arrived on Earth in search of cats, a truly abundant resource in Earth's cities but rare and precious to a culture totally lacking anything warm and cuddly that purrs.
Actually much of what happens in this movie could more easily be explained by the need for cats than by the need for water. An example is the mysterious glowing red hardware the Marines find guarding the underground command complex of the alien forces. We assume at first that these are sentry robots or proximity mines but they appear to totally disregard the Marines even though the alien soldiers went to a lot of trouble to install them. Clearly these contraptions were designed to capture cats, not battle humans.
Battle L.A. turned out to be a fun romp through a new version of the military's latest tactical training simulator -- not so much a movie as a video game someone else is playing. There's not much blood and gore and the Marines seem pretty much impervious to pain. The only real carnage you see is what's done to the aliens. Everyone else dies fairly neatly and without getting too upset. It's war as seen through the eyes of a Marine recruiting sergeant, an army of good-looking guys and gals out to save the world without getting too terribly dirty. There's no need to follow the Geneva Convention so anything goes, including ripping apart a living enemy soldier with your bare hands and punching individual internal organs into glistening goo as you discover what parts these fascinating enemies literally can't live without. Oo-rah! Buy yourself a ticket and let's go vicariously kill an unknown intelligent species! and save Earth's kitties for our own couches and alleyways.
Roman Bread for Running -- A Meal in One Piece
Published on March 20th, 2011 @ 08:17:16 pm , using 708 words, 1102 views
healthy fats and protein. And it tastes good.
If I have the right kind of home-baked bread I really don’t need anything else for my breakfast or lunch. By supper I’m ready for something to go with it, but if the recipe is right bread gives me everything I need. Reading about what the Tarahumara eat (and wanting to be able to do the things they do) made me reconsider my bread recipe. I’ve added some of the things the Roman Legion fed their troops, and I’m still tweaking the system. So far it’s the best bread I’ve ever eaten.
The basic recipe came off the back of a bag of Gold Medal Whole Wheat flour, and it’s called Honey-Whole Wheat Bread. I’ve changed it either a little or a lot every time I make it, but mostly by adding things and not by changing the basic plan.
The original parts I kept are as follows:
4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups warm water
1/4 cup warm water
4 1/2 tsp dry yeast
Instead of 1/4 cup butter I’ve substituted 1/4 cup spreadable vegetable margarine;
I use 1/4 cup honey mixed with either 1/4 cup dark molasses or 1/4 cup sorghum for a total of 1/2 cup, while the original recipe calls for 1/2 cup honey.
I’ve added whole grains of different types, depending on what I have on hand. I’m always using 1/4 cup of flax seed and will probably increase that amount later in the summer. I also added 1/4 cup of amaranth and 1/4 cup of teff this last time, but soy flour and sesame seeds came out pretty good, too.
Lately I’ve had really good results with my bread but it hasn’t always been like that. Instead of believing what I see on the yeast package I now start the yeast in warm water and honey, as this recipe recommends. Actually I’m mixing the honey and other sweetener with the margarine and the full amount of warm water, not the 1/4 cup the recipe recommends. Seems to work pretty well so I’m staying with that method.
I mix the dry ingredients together with a wire whisk, and I’m not a fancy baker so I add the liquid yeast mixture all at once and work it in by squeezing. When the dough is fairly uniform I adjust by adding a little water or a little flour and turn the dough out on the counter for kneading. After kneading until it forms a nice glutinous dough I shape it into a ball and rub a little cooking oil on it, then put it back in a covered bowl in a warm place and let it double in size.
This recipe makes quite a lot of bread, so I’ve been using pizza pans covered with aluminum foil. I divide the dough in two equal pieces, shape it again, and let it rise at least double on the pans. Then it goes into the oven at 375 degrees F. for 30 minutes. At 15 minutes I open the oven up and switch the top loaf to the bottom shelf and the bottom loaf to the top shelf, otherwise the top loaf will get too brown. At 30 minutes the temperature has to be reset to 350 degrees F., and the loaves bake for another 10 minutes. The crust should be hard enough that it resists a good thump.
The Romans received a daily ration of 1 1/2 kg of wheat and rye when times were good, according to what I’ve read lately. Some historians say it was less, only about two pounds. That’s still quite a lot of grain to eat in a day. The magic ingredient in Roman rations seems to be flaxseed, which is very high in beneficial fats just like the chia seed the Tarahumara eat. This bread probably has more fat and sugar in it than the old Roman rations.
Next recipe I’m substituting 1/2 cup of coconut milk for the 1/4 cup of margarine, which should come out to about the same fat content. Eventually I’ll come up with a "Roman bread" that’s sub-standard, but I sure haven’t yet. This bread is a meal by itself, just the way I like it.
Spiritual Running: Why We Run
Published on March 18th, 2011 @ 07:45:19 pm , using 719 words, 181 views
Over the last few days I've watched what happened in Japan during the earthquake, tsunami, and the nuclear aftermath that still unfolds. I don't want to minimize anything that happened there, and I have nothing but respect for the people who lived through that, died in that, or are at present trying to desperately deal with that. But, it reminded me of why I do what I do. I run.
Running is basic. It's affirmation of life, the only thing we can actually do to save ourselves in basic situations. Life isn't about martial arts and being able to mysteriously defeat forces beyond our ability to control. Life is about getting out of the way. That's a very humble thing, and something many people today disregard completely. When it comes down to basics, life isn't numbers stored in a bank account or the social credibility of what job you happen to perform. Life is just how fast you run.
I don't laugh at the Japanese people who didn't run fast enough. I've never cared more. I watch the videos of people lost and I cry. I see people on the brink of death and still trying and I cheer. This is a look at all of us, not just a glimpse of Japan in hard times. It could happen in some way, anywhere, to anyone. When I see those videos, I say, Run! Run! and even if I've seen those videos before I still mean it and I still care.
I saw many heartbreaking videos of what happened in Japan and sadly, I will see many more, since the crisis continues to unfold. What impressed me the most was a short clip of what happened when the tsunami hit a northern town.
People there had warning, but not all responded to the warning. Some people lived on higher areas of the valley and since the town was protected by seawalls they didn't think there was any need to leave their home and run up the hill. When the tsunami waves breached the seawall, that suddenly changed. The valley slopes funneled the waves higher, and even the upper areas of the town were inundated.
The people living there had seconds to respond. Some didn't, and some couldn't. I'm old enough that I know how age limits response to many things. I don't fault older people for sitting and waiting. The older you get, the more sense that makes. Some people found themselves on the edge of life and death, and I saw what a few of them did. They ran.
In this particular town, the people who lived on high ground had enough time to reconsider. When the waves came, and kept coming, they ran. I watched two women from one small neighborhood try to save themselves -- not saving family, not saving countries, but just trying to stay alive. One woman had a straight course across fields, to the high ground and safety; her neighbor had to cross a fence. One woman lived, and the other woman died.
I know what some of that feels like, because I run. If you just follow the "program," you get a little tired and a little sore and you hurt for awhile. If you really run, you know how it feels to be out of air. You burn. Legs don't work any more, your heart tries to burst out of your chest, and what you really want to do is stop and puke out your guts. People who push the limits know what that feels like. There's a point you simply can't cross, no matter what the incentive might be. It all stops, because you did reach your limits.
The people I watched who tried to outrun the tsunami pushed those limits. They were not Olympic runners, just normal people who did their best. In one video I saw, one woman lived and another woman died. Both of them tried their best and no one lost. They both deserve Olympic gold medals no matter what their time was.
That's what running is about, in the final balance. It's not about how much weight you lose or how low your resting heart rate might be. It's about life and death. By running we find our limits, and sometimes we find a way past them.
Spiritual Running Tonics -- Traditional Energy Tonics
Published on March 10th, 2011 @ 10:13:16 am , using 1185 words, 216 views
After a few days on the trail, sled dogs burn nearly
100 percent fat fuel. Could people train to do this?
See "Fat Burning Secrets..." from the Smithsonian.
Photo credit: cliftonmullins from morguefile.com
A few decades ago when runners talked about "hitting the wall" it was just one of those things you expected on a long run. After about 15 miles you'd suddenly feel like crap and be so weak you'd think you were unable to continue, but then you'd dig way down if you were brave enough and find renewed strength by sheer force of will, and you'd keep going.
All that talk about reaching deep for the buried strength within you and mentally being strong enough to continue on will alone seems now to be mostly egotistical talk. When muscles reach a specific level of exhaustion the autonomic nervous system shuts them down so energy stores won't completely be used up. Will has nothing to do with that, it's biological self-preservation. If you push yourself to your limits you'll find that point. One second you'll be plugging along full of determination and the next second your body tells you, no, you won't, and you stop. After a few minutes of rest you keep going.
People in higher levels of fitness reach their limits less often, and everyone's energy cutoff point is different, but it happens to all. When you run long enough to burn up your blood sugar and muscle glycogen, you "hit the wall." Suddenly you can't put one foot reliably in front of the other or run a straight course, and then as your metabolism shifts to fat reserves you gain renewed strength and recover. If you're an egotistical person taught to believe in mind over matter, you realize you've conquered a physical weakness by an effort of will. Actually your liver just kicked in and took a moment to start processing fat.
The fuel system of the body is actually much more complicated than that simplified version, but that's enough to understand what's happening in a practical way. Exhaustion at the limits of ability is set at a cellular level. Mitochondria in cells enable us to use fat, the body most efficient fuel, and our ability to do that depends on the numbers of mitochondria in our cells. That population of tiny furnaces increases if we frequently engage in long-duration physical labor, whether it's farm work or distance running. The more mitochondria you build, the better you are at burning fat. For someone in a lower level of fitness, a food that replaces blood sugar could make the best sense; since over the short term, with a lower mitochondrial count, the body prefers to burn sugar. As conditioning improves, the best fuel choice changes to a mixture of sugars and fats.
Dr. Eric Heiden, Olympic gold medalist and orthopedic surgeon, says that a mixture of glucose and fat feeds the fires of highly conditioned athletes, and you can see that reflected in the traditional tonic foods of ancient travelers. Pemmican, the food of choice when Native Americans set out on long treks, blends dried berries with rendered animal fat -- a source of carbohydrates and fat and very little else. The Tarahumara charge up with complex carbohydrates like potato soup and corn beer, but the trail tonic they drink along the way is a mixture of chia seeds, citrus juice, and sugar -- again, carbs and fats, since chia contains a high percentage of healthy oils, similar to those found in salmon.
Chia also replaces some important minerals which the body loses through perspiration, provides protein, and contains important vitamins. Chia tonics seem like a better idea for the long run than fat with dried blueberries, but pemmican represented only part of the traditional food plan here in northern America. Travelers grazed fresh vegetables and fruits along the way, eating plants most of us would skip today.
From Europe comes another story of a traditional powerhouse food for the long-distance foot traveler -- flaxseed. The nutritional content of flax closely resembles that of chia and even exceeds it in some mineral levels and in total fat content, yielding the same healthy oils as chia. The Roman Legion, according to many historians, fed their troops bread made from wheat, rye, and flaxseed. Roman soldiers were well known for their endurance and their strength in combat, able to march long distances without exhaustion. A normal day's ration included 1.5 kilograms of whole grains including the secret ingredient, flaxseed.
Another important benefit of both chia and flaxseed is that these tonic foods counter inflammation problems -- that reduces pain and helps runners keep going.
Today most of us avoid fat in order to keep body weight down, but during heavy exertion fat doesn't go through the storage cycle. Cells use fat in the bloodstream along with blood sugar, saving the body the extra steps of storage and retrieval.
Having learned all this fairly recently from researching several fitness articles for a paying client, I find it interesting to compare my own traveling diet to what traditionalists and sports professionals recommend. I've been a hiker and runner for decades, actually quite a few decades, and I've spent my work time primarily in labor-intensive occupations. I've learned to eat what keeps me going, and if a meal's fuel doesn't last past 9 a.m. I'm not happy with it. I don't eat breakfast at Shoney's if I have work to do.
My typical breakfast is a whole grain with fruit when I'm backpacking a difficult trail. For convenience I usually eat instant brown rice -- the secret fuel of the samurai with a modern twist -- and raisins. That's a healthy mixture of long-lasting complex carbohydrates and fast-acting fruit sugar. On the trail I don't get extremely hungry during the day, but I do fuel up along the way with a Tiger's Milk bar when I feel the need -- complex carbohydrates, sugar in a reasonable amount, minerals and vitamins, protein and fat. Supper is usually instant potatoes with Parkay margarine, a bouillon cube and a vitamin pill, as well as some dried meat or fish. During the day I graze wild food along the way. It doesn't sound like much but it makes me feel good. When I'm on the trail I'm just not hungry for anything else. Traveling food is fuel, not entertainment. My trail diet matches up very well to what ancient travelers discovered worked the best for them.
As a runner I've had more trouble, depending on modern professionals for advice and drinking energy drinks or power gels to keep charged on the runs. I don't find that such things work well for me. They give me a short burst of renewed energy and then I'm back to being really tired. This year I'm going to apply the traditional foods to my long runs and see if I find an improvement.
I also rebuilt my huaraches, using some tips from the Tarahumara, who build their running sandals out of old car tires. See my post about Shoe Goo on The Marked Tree for construction details using lighter materials. That works like a charm.
The Mechanical Principles of Spiritual Running: Applying Jing
Published on March 3rd, 2011 @ 09:25:13 pm , using 1065 words, 151 views
It's easy to set aside much of what the Tarahumara Indians do and file it away as some genetic quirk or simply exaggeration, but to me it looks real and possible for the rest of us, too. I wouldn't call it magical even though I know running can be a truly spiritual experience, pushing people into new areas of perception as well as pushing the boundaries of physical experience. To me what the Tarahumara do seems based on something that's possible for the rest of us to acquire, and I remember a couple of times in my life when possibly I did reach that level of fitness. I lacked something else that the Tarahumara don't even have to think about -- technique.
In Tai Chi Chuan one of the basic concepts is that in the ancient days, people did things differently on a basic level. People breathed differently and people walked differently. People performed mechanical work using a different set of physical principles than we do today. Tai Chi enthusiasts learn the ancient set and then try to apply that to daily life as well as self defense. Tarahumara running resembles some very basic things I learned in Tai Chi and then set aside. Now I'm seeing how those principles fit 
. Maybe for once something odd that I've learned will turn out to be really useful.
This year what I'm noticing most about my own running is that in spite of the barefoot training I've fallen back into bad old habits in terms of foot posture. As my feet got tougher my running reverted to the heel-first style again, and that mostly worked out ok. The problem showed up when I did longer runs. The heel-first strides put more stress on my hips and I was back to the problems I started with, sciatic pain that at its worst made my legs go numb and inoperative temporarily.
Spiritual Running and the Art of Jing
Published on January 16th, 2011 @ 03:53:02 pm , using 900 words, 620 views
I finished reading "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall last week, and even though I enjoyed the book I found it disappointing in technical terms. There's a lot of good talk about running but not enough real explanation of how the Tarahumara style works. Worst tragedy of all, there's no recipe for tesquino, the corn beer that Tarahumara runners stoke themselves with the night before a big race. How can you write about the Tarahumara and not include a recipe for tesquino? Fortunately I've experimented with enough home brew that I can figure it out for myself. 
From having sorted through the book for useful bits of info and from having watched as many videos as I could find of genuine Tarahumara runners actually running, I do have a theory which is probably as good as anybody's theory. The same rules of physics apply to these people as to the rest of us, and that means the 40,000 calories people burn on an ultramarathon doesn't come out of thin air. Some runners carry dried corn, and there's a chia-based tonic they drink along the way as well. Just as people there aren't likely to ask for food and water -- because it's impolite -- people aren't likely to not offer something if they see you're in need of it. Several stories in the book deal with that local brand of generosity.
We can assume that people aren't running these long distances without food or water. On races here in the States where impolite Americans didn't offer the Tarahumara food and drink, they didn't take any, and they didn't do all that well in those races. Properly fueled they did just fine on others. But, they're not eating 40,000 calories during a race, and they don't have a lot of body fat to burn. So again the question is, how the heck do they do this?
The answer must be in efficiency, not in calories. The Tarahumara run barefoot-style, on the balls of the feet and the toes instead of on the flat of the foot or heels. That puts a more efficient set of leg muscles into operation and reduces impact stress -- something I've noticed from running training distances for several years in a bastard style of Tarahumara form, and something I'm seeing more now that I've actually watched them run. I was doing it all wrong, and even then I saw major improvements. Maybe I'll see another big jump soon.
A couple of things struck me as useful, from descriptions of the runners in the book. They run quietly, people speak of them as gliding, making so little noise that during night finishes observers nearly missed them running past. That's really low impact running, without skids or twists, and something to strive for. I can't do that yet.
Spiritual Running -- Is There More Than Just the Physical?
Published on January 2nd, 2011 @ 11:50:07 am , using 1301 words, 575 views
Photo by Carl S. Lumholtz.
Currently I'm a little bored, and I'm looking for something unusual to do -- something so fascinating that I won't just drop it and watch something on television. I'm thinking about taking up spiritual running, as soon as I can form an opinion of what that actually is. Chi running recently became popular and I was briefly excited by that, but it didn't hold much that was new to me because I've practiced Tai Chi Chuan for quite a long time. Applying those principles to running and walking is a normal outgrowth of practice. Most people find it surprising that we do basic things like running and walking incorrectly, but it's fundamental to Tai Chi. Changing those basic things changes everything we do. I'd like to see more changes of that type, especially in my running.
I've been a runner for a long time, since the 70's. There were times when I'd run 15 miles a night, four or five times a week; and there were years when I'd run an occasional mile just to see if I still could. I ran a half-marathon a few years ago and found it to be a miserable experience. I currently am in a training program for a full marathon and unsure if I'll ever actually do it, but since I'll feel like a shrimp if I don't I expect that I will -- even if it means dragging myself across the finish line on my elbows. I'm also interested in the mental and spiritual aspects of running, which is actually one of the simplest shamanic ordeals and mind-altering experiences a person can do. Runners who push their personal limits often encounter supernatural entities, and a few hallucinations as well. Like me, the runners who have this experience find it easy enough to sort out the meaningful apparitions from the pointless. If it's a useful contact, you get useful and sometimes life-saving information. Otherwise, it's just interesting to watch.
Three styles of spiritual running currently have my attention. The first is practiced by the Tarahumara people of Northern Mexico. I took up their running style a few years ago because of foot injuries and have run in thin huarache sandals ever since. That completely altered my running technique, cured my foot problems and eliminated most of my running aches and pains. Adjusting to a barefoot-running technique also slowed me up for a couple of years while I learned to run with different muscle sets than before. Most people run with the front of the thigh providing the most power, but in barefoot running that focus shifts to the back of the thigh. I think I'm just now really getting the hang of it and I want to learn a little more from the Tarahumara if I can. Especially about fuel.
Here in the States, runners typically fuel with sports drinks and sports gels while on long runs, and although I've done this I'm not happy with it. It works, but I've got a feeling there's something better, and I see too many problems with sugar rushes and crashes. If you don't get the timing right, you're into a fatigue cycle that's hard to put right again. So instead of tinkering with the salty sweets I'm trying to find out what the Tarahumara eat.
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