Trail Runs

"Your innermost sense of self, who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form. " ~ Eckhart Tolle


Trail running is the best kind of running to me. I love being outside, surrounded by trees and sky. Today the sky was bright blue with patches of big puffy clouds drifting lazily across it. The silhouette of winter bare branches against that sky is one of my favorite things about this season. The weather today was in the mid-30s - just perfect! I ran about 12 miles or so, stopping occasionally to take a picture of something that caught my eye - vines wrapped around a tree, a small stream sliding over a pile of pebbles, a deer fleeing into the woods at my approach, the aforementioned dark branches framed so perfectly against the sky.


I can't imagine a better place to experience stillness than in the woods. I didn't see a single other soul for over 2 hours. I don't listen to music while I run so I can drink in all the sounds around me - the rustle of dry leaves left clinging to a branch, the groan of one tree rubbing again another in the wind, the occasional cry of a bird, the water gurgling by in a stream, my constant footsteps on the dirt path. I often repeat a mantra in my head to the rhythm of my feet - "I am divine peace" is a favorite. And I do feel that peace fill me in the woods. I can experience that innermost sense of self to which Eckhart Tolle refers. Then I bring home the stillness of the woods to draw on during my busy days, to remind me that I am the stillness.