Leg of Balance

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I injured my leg while on vacation last week, although it might be more accurate to say I saw the end of a slow motion injury last week. The set up for the injury began long ago with repetitive activity that set the tendons up. I was already out of balance and the wrong landing on a run just sealed the deal. So, I sit here thinking. I’m one of those folks who always sees patterns, habits and a story in the events of life. I don’t believe in random, at least not how most people see it. We are in an endless feedback loop between ourselves and the Universe; and everything begins with a thought. I think my life into existence. Thus, I sit here looking at my leg and thinking. The imbalance of my body, at the moment, speaks to me of an imbalance in my thinking.

I run the stairs at work, which is really good for you. However, I’ve gotten so addicted to it that I haven’t been doing other things I used to love, too. Especially as running the stairs caused me to lose a lot of weight. The downside, of course, is it over-developed my outer quads, leaving the inner leg weaker and more strain on the tendons. Also, worth noting is it doesn’t develop your upper body strength, thus, these crutches are hard on my arms.

I tighten the brace on my leg and consider the lack of balance in my body. It really is a reflection of a lack of balance in my thinking. The first indication of that is of a low grade, but steady anxiety about putting on weight because I can’t run the stairs. The second indication is the desire to push my healing. Find a magic trick to heal up faster. These are systemic thoughts from a deeper belief system about well-being. To truly heal the leg, I’ve got to heal the way I perceive time and well-being.

I have to slow down and fall in love where I am in this moment.

I’m a firecracker loaded with gasoline. In person, I’m a pretty mello person to be around, but inside I’m always on the go. Driving to work has been my spiritual gauntlet, as I have to harness my energy not to speed every second I’m in the car. There’s a curious pressure in my mind to get projects done, as if there were a clock somewhere ticking incessantly. I have ideas, brilliant ones by the way, that I fear won’t see the light of day if I’m not on the move. I recently started a life coaching business, as I know a great deal about how to bring change and ideas to life, but I’m sitting here looking at my leg realizing I also need to understand ideas like slow, inactivity, and quiet to coach, too. I need to know how to have balance in my thoughts, to have balance in my body and life. This equates to working hard and hardly working. Yoga and running. Playing foolishly and getting the job done. Outright, unapologetic laziness and periods of industriousness. Dancing disco and sitting quietly to meditate. Balance. This is what my leg has given me. A lesson on the importance of a slow, quiet, occasionally frenetic, balanced life.

Stairway to Heaven

Stair hike at Mount Glennon Park: Photo by Noelle

Stair hike at Mount Glennon Park: Photo by Noelle

Sorry couldn’t resist the title.

I’d been climbing the stair to the cliff path. The light broke the ridge and poured down the stair. Amazing moment, made more so by the fact I almost didn’t take the evening hike. I’ve been focusing on living more in the now, lately. Taking advantage of what is available in my life. Filling my mind with more nature and less obsessing about the minutiae of daily living. Something about a mountain trail makes me more aware of my good fortune and breaks my egos need to look for what’s missing.

Still, it had been a long day, and I could find a million reasons to veg out at home. This moment was a perfect reward for having stepped out the front door. A little bit of spirit in the mountain weeds.

Little Gem

Arial view of The Rockies in Colorado: Photo by Noelle

Arial view of The Rockies in Colorado: Photo by Noelle

To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own.

Meister Eckhart

The Trail

Bear Creek Lake, Lakewood,  Colorado: Photo by Noelle

Bear Creek Lake, Lakewood, Colorado: Photo by Noelle

The trail is long as a river in the grass. Sand lilies grace the trail dwarfed now and then by soapweed yucca. In this vastness, the short and tall grasses each belong to me, as surely as the wild sky. Storm clouds gloom, but the rainbow only laughs. The sun has broken through and crickets sun themselves on drying stones. They snap and sing, flying just ahead of me into the sagewort and buffalo grass. I hear the mountain plover and the meadowlark close and far, but they are nothing more than flickers in my peripheral vision. So much moves in this rolling prairie, but always sees me before I see it. Still, I do not hunger for company in such a crowd of scrappy rabbits and field mice. If I keep my pace, I may find the pot of gold before the light winks night.

Leaping

Walking bridge at Clement Park: Photo by Noelle

Walking bridge at Clement Park: Photo by Noelle

Not everyone at the edge is leaping towards death. They aren’t all desperately escaping grief and depression. Some of us come to the edge to see who we are in the air. Then the water. The chance to leap, a joy hungered for. For surely, there is exhilaration in risking everything to become who you truly are. In the quiet corners of our lives we daydream of how water transforms.

Scraps and Pieces

Encaustic on wax paper: Collage by Noelle

Encaustic on wax paper: Collage by Noelle

We’re all made up of scraps and pieces – some bright and colorful as peacock feathers, while others dull as mud. Separately, maybe nothing much, but thrown together within you – beautiful.

Celebrate your ragged edges and your patched up holes. You are, at once, as common as a white button and as wild as the Helix nebula exploding in the constellation of Aquarius.

Coming of Night

Coming of night over Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

Coming of night over Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

In the coming of night I feel the day slip away. In the last rays that crest the hill, I forget what disturbed my midday and nagged my afternoon. No monk am I, but there is a vesper in my heart at this hour. As if the monastery bell had rung and in the reeds of the lake I knelt. Swallows catch the last flies, before the chill descends with the night. I ache to follow the rays across the horizon, yet, there is peace in this twilight I fear to miss. The passing of my day, its light and its dark, not to be walked again.

Continent of Mud: Photo Poem 37

The story of mud: Photo by Noelle

A story in mud: Photo by Noelle

When I was young everything had to have order. I liked symmetry and balance. If there was a block of blue on the left, than there must be a block of blue on the right. A proper picture of my family home had a sun and green grass. Beauty was related to this curious and predictable pattern of things. I have left that land and wandered into a story of randomness and chaos. What completely lacks symmetry and order possesses the most exquisite beauty to me. A sense of inner balance discovered that clearly was lacking when my outer world was perfectly planned.

Mud over flowers. I am deeply happy here.