Running about is all I have ever done really…
Running about through different lands, on the land.
Feeling the sun on my body, the wind, the rain, the hail, the snow; running through the seasons…
Running around the world.
Up mountains and down them again
Alongside rivers; beaches stretching for miles
Bare feet on hard sand – such a joy…
Through jungles I have run
Through the streets of cities
On common land and rocky mountain roads
I have terrified myself running up to a glacier (never again!)
And still I am running about
Every day
A lifetimes practise
Running to become
Running to my own ‘Ithika’…
And recognising that the journey is where the joy is, the learning, the growth…
The words from one of my favourite poems ‘Ithaka’ by PJ Cavafy say it all to me…
‘As you set out for Ithaka
Hope your road is a long one,
Full of adventure, full of discovery”
Having a goal – for me a running goal means – that we set off to discover to uncover, to find out…
And as we journey towards our goal the real gift is in the discoveries along the way and the people we become through stretching for the stars…
‘Ithaka gave you a marvellous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out…’
‘Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
You’ll have understood by then what these Ithaka’s mean…’
And for me all the journeying is teaching me to be
Here
Now
