“The thing that rants and raves and seeks, make it still. That thing that never moves, make it move.” – Koyote the Blind
I recently made another commitment to the cosmos to step up my responsibility and open further to power. As life has it, this also must include my time at the gym. I’ve got to be healthy to strengthen my will and must strengthen my will to become yet more healthy. Nothing in life is free from the soul’s desire.
This week, my trainer did some experimental work with me, because she sensed that my energy was giving out before my body did. So to the streets we took, alternating jogging, with push-ups on cement blocks, more jogging, triceps dips on marble steps, more jogging… You get the picture. Jogging along, I quipped, “In the Gospel of Thomas it is said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within… and therefore, so must be the Kingdom of Hell.” Yeah, I talk like that to my trainer. She puts up with me anyway.
Lately, I’ve been working on not complaining at the gym as a way of containing and focusing my energy rather than wasting it. So I forego the self-deprecating, funny comments or saying I’m going to die when I’m clearly not. Yet. I’ve been trying to act out the prescription in that quote above, which I just heard last night. It has indeed been helping, but my mind is still quick to go to “I don’t like this” or “I can’t do this” before I can see it, take a breath, re-center and shift my attention to something that feels more helpful. We all have our old patterns, and this is one of mine. Even after years of working to expand my capacity on all fronts, the diminishing of self and power still insinuates itself into my mind. So Wednesday, I slogged through the workout, engaging within, and then collapsing within, then re-engaging, then re-collapsing.
As we cooled down, she observed that she sees the strength in my body, can watch when I get a thought, and then sense my energy start to spiral down. “What does this tell you?” she asked. “That the mind is a powerful thing,” I replied.
I want to commit more fully to my life and to my soul’s task – the Work of This God – and right now, this includes committing more fully to my workouts. I have to bring all of my meditation and energy practices to the bench, to the rack, to the mat, to the street. That which rants, must be held in abeyance and taught to become still. That thing in me which never moves? It must. I must harness all of my years of magical training and set the slumbering bear into motion. As a magic worker, nothing is outside the realms of practice.
What has your mind convinced you that you cannot do? What limits have you placed upon your soul? What structures of practicality have you built around desire? How do you box yourself in?
Can we take one further step toward freedom this week? Can we support each other’s practice and desire? Can we not coddle our own weaknesses, but lend each other strength?
Be still, and know that you are God. Then take that divine impulse and run. Joyously.