No, my life is not this precipitous hour

No, my life is not this precipitous hour

through which you see me passing at a run.

I stand before my background like a tree.

Of all my many mouths I am but one,

and that which soonest chooses to be dumb.


I am the rest between two notes

which, struck together, sound discordantly,

because death’s note would claim a higher key.


But in the dark pause, trembling, the notes meet,

harmonious.


…And the song continues sweet.


– Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems from the Book of Hours

Love is Kind

So I've been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and laying off the hard core running the past couple of months. Jiu jitsu isn't like running -- it's not the quiet activity you do as a meditation; it's the closest physically you ever get to a person you aren't sleeping with. It's hard core wrestling, but it has a flow and is strategic. Some people, including my teacher, call it kinetic chess.

Something that happened spontaneously and has become a mental pattern when I'm training is that a familiar passage from the New Testament used in wedding ceremonies keeps coming into my head:

1 Corinthians 13:4-8:  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

While my brain has this mantra on repeat (usually just the first line), I'm engaged in trying to figure out how to survive and escape getting choked, or simply throw a big guy off of me who's bearing down with all his weight. Yeah, it's weird and a bit ironic, but the rhythm of the lines are meditative. They help me slow down and think about what I'm doing. I could probably achieve the same effect from "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," but that's not the one my brain decided on.

I should say that the people I train with at the gym have been incredibly patient, honorable and kind to me as a newbie. When we train together, regardless of belt ranking, we lose our egos and treat each other with respect. We have an informal 'no anger' policy, use a lot of humor, and work as selflessly as possible. All relationships could benefit from these virtues.

There is something poetic about Jiu-Jitsu as a representation of the wrestling we go through in life, with our selves, and in love. I hope that I'm becoming a better grappler overall. At least I'm working on it.

The months I've taken off of running have been restorative, and it's nice to find a new way to connect body and mind. Maybe I'm almost ready to start running again...

That which is hard to see, entering the hidden, set in the secret place, dwelling in the primal depth, by meditating on this as God through the uniting of the soul, the wise person leaves joy and sorrow behind. -Katha Upanishad

76. Bringers. Sandburg, Carl. 1918. Cornhuskers

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.
-John Ruskin



Blind Willie Johnson, "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"

We inhale luminous, cool air, and our respiration is a prayer, as is the beating of our heart.
-F. Schuon

I have been woven among the meshes of long ropes
and fine filaments: older than the rocks and
fresh as the dawn of this morning today are
the everliving roots who begot me,
who poured me as one more seeker
one more swimmer in the gold and gray procession...

-Carl Sandburg