Day 57: Barefoot Journal

Today I did my first beach run specifically for more targeted arch development. And boy, was it effective.

I’m sure I did less than 1 mile of jogging with a handful of short sprints and lots of walking worked in. My calves locked up immediately when I tried to go up onto my tiptoes after a resting break standing in the ocean.

I could feel the arches very engaged on the beach sand (especially the weaker outer toes), it was perfect! I pushed it a bit too hard, though, considering I had spent much of the past 5 days in my room on the computer!

Something very frightening and interesting happened once I left the beach. The toes were a bit crampy, and my right big toe and 2nd toe were going numb in the very cool air (as were my fingers!). I went to a local cafe, warmed up a bit, was doing some passive foot stretching under the table, but found when I left the restaurant and hopped on a train, that my 2nd toe was still numb and very white.

I tried flexing it many times (it barely still flexed), rubbing my hands over it, breathing my hot air on it (a feat of flexibility!), and tucking the sole against my warm UV-radiated belly and leaning forward to compress the heat onto it. A few cycles of this and I wasn’t getting far. I was getting a bit panicked.

For some reason I felt compelled to sit on the foot with the toes flat. This was super-painful for the top of the foot. But after a good stretching, I put my foot down and color started coming back in. I noticed that my foot was sorest on top where the bones come together more, and that there has always been a kind of calcium or hard small lump fatty-deposit there. It was aching all around that area.

That told me that it wasn’t a temperature issue so much as it was a nerve impingement issue down the top of my foot. As I am developing my arch muscles. The bottoms of the feet shrink up, which means the top of my foot needs to open up and point more down, ballerina-like. It doesn’t yet have that flexibility, so I will need to train that more.

More sitting on my ankles and heels!

Where Did You Go?

You had me in your arms but we both had other plans
I melted at your sadness
And I knew I had your heart

It was only for a week
But a week changed everything
I would never come within
A canyon’s reach of you again

Even when we laid together
Naked and entwined
Who grew the distance?
I felt you leave

I tried to trap you
Tried to please you
Tried to ignore my breaking heart
Tried to take care of myself

I let you go
A hundred times
And I cried
A hundred times
And the farther away I go
The closer I seem to get to you

You’ve called me back from the edge of death
My pulse quickens at your name
I’m trying
All the time
But I just can’t seem to leave you.

2013 Mission

Every year I try to lay out what I want my life to look like. I dream again about how awesome things could be, and I try not to hold back. At this stage, it doesn’t matter how, it’s WHAT.

*jogging at the ocean 1x/week
*Kayak or join a rowing team, swim or surf 1x/month min. – get out/in on the water more
*hike Mt. Diablo
*find a local hot spring
*pay more attention to my appearance
*let people finish speaking – don’t interrupt
*spend more time enjoying my meals
*make time/spaces for napping
*Check email twice a day, morning and evening on laptop
*keep track of every single expense, log weekly
*Plan meals ahead of time
*Shop weekly
*stay barefoot!
*keep thriving – less striving
*save up for something
*International travel – South America, India
*National Travel – New York, Montana, Idaho
*State Travel – Bioluminescence Kayaking, Whale Watching, Mt. Diablo, Death Valley, Mt. Shasta
*Local Travel – Berkeley Hills hike, Bayview Park
*Education – health research, astrology, electrical engineering
*make more stuff
*take more pictures
*dinner parties!
*read one book/month
*one movie/month
*dancing 1x/month
*start making homemade cat food
*keep vitamins/supplements stocked
*call someone once/day
*Put away funds for gifts and charity
*take voice lessons
*Learn to play new piano song/hymn daily
*Stretch 30 mins/day (15 mins 2x/day)
*Keep fixing feet
*Keep fixing shoulders
*Keep fixing upper back
*Keep fixing hips/chins/calves
*Keep fixing eyes
*Fixing exercises 30 mins/day min. total
*Don’t rush stuff, let others go first
*Make love 3x/week minimum
*Keep room and office(s) clean and organized weekly

Re-Organized List (a couple items added):

Generally:
*Check in quarterly to make sure this stuff happens (March, June, September)
*Don’t rush stuff, let others go first
*take voice lessons
*stay barefoot!
*keep thriving – less striving
*save up for something
*International travel – South America, India
*National Travel – New York, Montana, Idaho
*State Travel – Bioluminescence Kayaking, Whale Watching, Mt. Diablo, Death Valley, Mt. Shasta
*Local Travel – Berkeley Hills hike, Bayview Park
*Education – health research, astrology, electrical engineering
*make more stuff
*take more pictures
*hike Mt. Diablo
*find a local hot spring

Monthly:
*Make Monthly to-do list on last day of prior month
*Put away funds for gifts and charity
*dinner parties!
*read one book/month
*one movie/month
*dancing 1x/month
*start making homemade cat food
*keep vitamins/supplements stocked
*Kayak or join a rowing team, swim or surf 1x/month min. – get out/in on the water more

Weekly:
*Make Weekly to-do list on Sundays
*Keep room and office(s) clean and organized weekly
*Make love 3x/week minimum
*Plan meals ahead of time
*Shop weekly
*jogging at the ocean 1x/week
*weekly accounting of expenses/income
*visit local friend at their home

Daily:
*Make daily to-do list in morning
*Learn to play new piano song/hymn daily
*Stretch 30 mins/day (15 mins 2x/day)
*Keep fixing feet
*Keep fixing shoulders
*Keep fixing upper back
*Keep fixing hips/chins/calves
*Keep fixing eyes
*Fixing exercises 30 mins/day min. total
*call someone once/day
*pay more attention to my appearance
*let people finish speaking – don’t interrupt
*spend more time enjoying my meals
*make time/spaces for napping
*Check email twice a day, morning and evening on laptop
*keep track of every single expense
*Plan meals ahead of time

Our New World – Some Thoughts

Just got forwarded this video by my mother, apparently it went online in 2007. http://www.youtube.com/embed/42E2fAWM6rA

Memes: Time with family vs. time with work; money vs. happiness (Themes very common around Christmas time!)

This video inspired me today with its brilliance because it encapsulates the human condition and patterns of adaptation. We have certainly reached a tipping point in our culture where institutions we have created are failing, but is the answer really to go into reverse? Let’s examine the institutional (human idea) “failures” and their dynamics. I think you’ll see that in most cases, going forward will not mean exactly going backward (as romantic as this would be)!:

1. Nuclear Families: Divorces, More single-parent homes (due in part to racist drug wars), more acceptance of Non-Traditional Families. Children moving farther away, scattering across the globe AND/OR moving back in with parents due to an inability to survive in a more expensive and/or chaotic world. Adults waiting longer to have children. Having fewer children later. More women in college than men, role reversals. Egg and sperm donations.

-The notion of nuclear families seems to be a throwback from two generations ago (our grandparents). Since we tend to want to do the opposite of what our parents did (because of course they are blamed for our unhappiness as children) we probably tend to escape what didn’t work from our parent’s generation by going back to the grandparent’s generation for answers. However, we are finding now that what worked for our grandparents won’t work for us in today’s more mobile and uncertain world, and it is frustrating. We are no longer settling down on farms in the west with our large families, hunting and fishing. We are jumping at the national and international opportunities as they flash in front of us, and relating more electronically.There is less actual physical connection between loved ones, and our biology hasn’t caught up to that yet. It may be manifesting in sex addictions and violence, sadness from expectations of a marriage and family not matching up to the reality of today’s cultural/resource demands.

2. Banks: Our bankers over-leveraged themselves by creating illusion/mystery products they could not explain/understand/justify, causing the mortgage/housing/lending industry to collapse. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The world’s major banks dominate international currency exchange, therefore we must maintain relationships with them unless we want to usurp their power to create a national public bank. Mortgage holders got the short end of this stick because we do not have the resources or willpower for a large-scale failure and national bank takeover. We are simply unprepared to takeover should the banks fail us, much like Egyptians were unprepared with a new leader after toppling the old. People must adapt to this new economy by better understanding their protections when entering contracts with banks. This may drive more self-reliance temporarily, but eventually large funds will have to be borrowed for large projects from either a lower-interest large-scale public collaboration (credit unions are on the rise) or will again fall to the easier route of the banks, who arguably have a monopoly collectively until lending power among the people rises to those levels.

3. Investments: Investment managers overleveraged their bets and used resources they didn’t have to produce short-term gains; costing many people their retirement savings and sending themselves into jail/suicide. Investing is complex. People need to beware of smoke and mirrors. The competitive nature of investing makes transparency difficult. People then need to accept that the lower the transparency, the greater the risk, and assign only risk-tolerant assets to non-transparent investments that promise great return.

4. Environment: We collectively have made a lot of hasty environmental assumptions before putting thousands of new chemically-engineered products onto the market to grow crops, make food last longer, sanitize, and to enhance our appearance, get to work faster, work harder, sleep less, and then to suffer less with our illness(es). As a result, our planet’s air, water, and fatty tissues of humans and animals contain toxic chemicals whose inflammation effects in our very own internal ecosystems (the human body’s microbiome) are just starting to be understood. The more chemicals we consume, the more oblivious and avoidant we seem to become to tackling impending catastrophic climate change. And as a side-note, the fatter we become, the more propensity we have toward being untruthful (biochemically). Fat gives off estrogen, and men given doses of testosterone in a recent study were less likely to lie – i.e., more likely to admit to the reality of a situation. I wouldn’t listen to climate/environment advice from anyone who is seriously overweight. Prejudice or science? hmmm….

5. Money: We had a floodgate of money open up to us in the 90s with easy access to credit cards. We were all able to make short-term impulse buys without having to plan for long-term consequences, and this financially ruined many many families. We did not trust our own ability to pull money toward ourselves so we borrowed it from those we thought had the money, giving our power over to them. When one late payment was made, the once affordable debt became totally unaffordable.

“A discussion of consumer debt must acknowledge, however, that consumers ultimately make the decision about whether to apply for credit and how much to borrow.”

This is a fascinating statement from the Federal Reserve, basically putting all the responsibility on citizens for their financial choices. It makes you wonder how much choice people really do have, however, when minimum wage hasn’t risen in 40 years, but I digress.

Likely due to the rapid evolution of technology and information dissemination, there is more uncertainty in what products and services people need. This leads to unstable job markets. We are no longer living in an era where dad goes to work from 9-5 at the same manufacturing plant for 25 years. We are definitely not living in our grandparent’s world where we worked on the farm from 5am to 9pm, but we want to act like it. Our working hours are long, and are usually piece-meal from several part-time jobs, or we experience longer periods of unemployment/job-seeking between jobs. The point is, there is more chaos and uncertainty. It makes sense that people would want to stabilize this by buffering the instability with credit card use. Perhaps we ought to legislate around this so as to give our citizens a bit more buffer/mental relief while coping with a new volatile economy which shows no signs of stabilizing.

6. College: We allowed ourselves to think that the ivy league universities only accepted the best and the brightest, and they charged lots of money which encouraged that myth in a feedback loop. Now the bottom is dropping out of the universities – we are at a tipping point where the government keeps pulling money out, leaving the burden to families, so only the wealthy or those willing to take on the enormous debt burden of college for the illusion of connections and job security (which they won’t get because they are too busy working 3 jobs during college to keep the loans at bay to make the connections necessary to get a good job). And meanwhile, education is becoming free on the internet to anyone that wants it. Colleges as institutions are slow to change and will be extinct before long should tuition costs continue on trend. Trends are toward mentorship, emphasizing relationships/social connections, entrepreneurship and job creation. Those people able to quickly mobilize money and people around new information & technologies will win in the new rat race.

7. Goods and Services: Products are designed for one-time use. The throwaway products can generate the most money the quickest. New technologies are always in demand. The trick to this game is not to run out of resources or create too many toxic by-products along the way. Critical-resource conservation and life-cycle legislation should be priorities.

8. Get Rick Quick Schemes: Many MLM companies shot up from the 1980’s to the early 2000’s.  An MLM creates an illusion of wealth which draws people in then steals their wealth leaving them more bankrupt. Similar refinancing cons affected people in the housing market who were over-leveraged but somehow managed to own very expensive/valuable properties. They used their homes as leverage for riches that were just out of reach. In a more chaotic world, people are more apt to throw their hands up in the air to try to snag anything that looks like a golden ring. And why not? They have time since they do not have steady work, and most buy-ins are affordable. But these can be giant wastes of time, so business opportunities need to be evaluated on actual value provided to society. If an idea doesn’t totally light your fire like it’s the best thing you’ve heard lately, you probably shouldn’t pursue it just for the promised golden ring.

“OUR CULTURE HAS NOT PREPARED US FOR THE RATE OF CHANGE WE WOULD SEE IN OUR LIFETIME.” My roommate the other day.

We are living in an information age. Hearing too many other perspectives and trying to assimilate them all throws off your sense of balance, sense of judgement, and ability to make decisions. For example, if you have a desire to do something, and now have 500 different opinions on Google for how to do it, you are simply not equipped with the time to analyze 500 different options. You must trust an expert, or you must make an emotional decision and have faith that your decision was the best you could do at the time. And you are more likely to fail. Failure is really hard on the human psyche. Those that can get up and dust themselves off and try again eventually win. Those whose failures put them into a bind they can’t find a way out of are the most pitied.

It’s kind of like speculating in the stock or futures markets. They say any market with more than about 30% speculators will become chaotic and subject to short-term rather than long-term thinking: emotion/mob-mentality vs. stability/logically-calculated changes. Volatility/price swings will then become the norm.

When you are overloaded with “information” i.e., “perspectives”, as the stock market is (unpredictable), your brain becomes overloaded. Brains are only capable of binary logic. Distilling down multiple perspectives into the right binary question then becomes a valuable skill.

I find it interesting that this parallels what is happening with climate change. We are turning up the heat in the atmosphere, and climate starts swinging between extremes.

The earth goes through cycles of stability and volatility. It may just be the nature of life itself. It is not the stable planet, stable home-base we like to think of it as. The core itself is always cooling, burping and releasing its lava/heat/CO2 into our atmosphere. The plates are always shifting a bit, groaning under the weight of the oceans/tides and the molten crust’s liquid rhythms.

As below, so above. The sun against the tilt of the earth’s axis, warms only the continents and oceans it reaches, which are themselves drifting and changing levels and densities. The moon’s orbit causes disturbances. The sun itself experiences flareups, bursts, etc. of an extremely volatile nature–thankfully its distance from us mutes some of these disturbances.

Even our solar system is subject to the disturbing interactive forces of the entire milky way galaxy as we make our relatively slow revolution around its center.

Our use of technology has allowed us to connect to one another and experience one another’s perspectives. It is confusing, it is brilliant, it is beautiful, it is paralyzing, it is chaotic, it is enlightening. And it is the world we must adapt to, together.

Real Warrior

Stop it!
You’re not really fighting
Too scared to throw a real punch
You plant landmines for each other
And dance around your pain
It’s pathetic
Fearful of getting hurt
You wave your sword in the air like a coward
Be a real warrior
And aim straight for the heart

Ruby Slippers

Here Again
Last time: don’t write, just observe
This time: remember stuff
Remember it’s all the same
Don’t Keep Coming Back Here
The same escape
No matter what the name
The little pets become
The continuity you crave, the landmarks
It’s cold here
And one world keeps
Beckoning me into the other
A different seduction each time
And just make sure the
Money and the illusion
The heat and the cold
But why does one seduction
Tempt me so much?
That it tells me an elaborate story
Each time to bring me back as if
It were the true actor in
My life’s story.
Will it ever hate me enough to kill me?
Repeating patterns until learned

Best 2012 End of the World Kit!!

I had this idea to make everyone I love an end-of-the-world kit this year with stuff my friends make that I totally love. Unfortunately, my finances didn’t align in time to gift, so here is a virtual kit, feel free to order what you need for yourself!

 

End of the World Kit

If it was good enough for (the end of) the Mayans, it’s good enough for (the end of) us!

The world is ending, go out with the best, most sacred healthy, RAW chocolate IN THE WORLD. One small bite of the Amazonian raw heart is to kill, I mean die for. Plus, it’s made and blessed by a minister of the sacred heart, the amazing Sacred Steve, so it’s extra zombie protection.

Have a little Cockfidence!

It’s the end of the world, might as well go out with a bang! Yeah, those are my hot friends on the cover. Get your groove on too!

 

Express Yourself!

Always wanted to paint your body green but didn’t know what your boss might think about it? It’s the end of the world! Now’s the time to do it! Here’s a book my friends made with some inspiration!

 

Fuel up to Run From Zombies!!

Delicious raw energy food – order a bunch now so you won’t have to waste precious time pillaging stores later! Zombies hate healthy food like Lydia Organics green crackers or Kale Krunch in dairy-free cheezy or chocolate too…nom nom nom

 

Hope you enjoyed! Love you and have fun in the new Era :-)

2012 Recap – My Happy Holiday Letter!!!

Wow! What a year! I thought it would be fun to look back at some highlights from this year, to reminisce and catch up those of you I don’t get to see often enough :-)

2012 opened for me with a bang, at midnight watching fireworks 360 degrees around me on a rooftop in London, decked out in a flamboyant costume party dress, drunk enough on mulled wine to feel warm instead of cold, and in the company of some fabulous and fun human beings.

My 9-day trip to London with a very special friend and lover was wonderful and insightful. We learned that living together wasn’t going to be in our immediate futures :-) I got to spend about 3-4 hours/day touring the city, visiting museums, met up with a Chevron colleague and his wife for dinner, got to peek around the Olympic stadium in East London while under construction, and stayed at Cambridge. It was really magical.

Returning home in January, I spent much of the month doing live interviews of Olympic track and field throwers for a project I created called the Powerful Women Athletes Telesummit. About 200 people tuned in over the month and it was a really amazing experience that allowed me to give something new to my sport in a big way.

It was my 5th year coaching at San Francisco State University, and my fourth year with athletes Deirdra Bridgett and Luisa Musika. They were my first group of athletes to have been coached by me all four years of their eligibility so that was pretty special. In February, I decided to do a radical experiment with the throwers that dared to: Go six weeks without eating wheat, dairy, or sugar. Two of us made it 5 weeks, and during that 5 weeks, my athlete Luisa lost 30 pounds and qualified for the indoor national championships in the shot put for the first time in her career. It was so brave of them to try something so difficult and I think we all learned a lot from that experience. I got to travel to Minnesota with Luisa for the indoor national championships and I really enjoyed taking the Californians out to a nature area on one of our days off to experience walking around in the snow and throwing things onto an icy river :-)

We had a challenging outdoor track and field season with the weather: A lot of rainy meets, some even got cancelled part-way through. It is difficult to stay motivated when you are soaking wet to the bone as part of your job, but we hung in there and continued to do what we love despite the difficulties. It was also my first year coaching the javelin throw event and I really learned a lot from my athletes.

My coaching job doesn’t pay all my bills, so I continued to work other jobs part-time. I did a lot of special-event valet parking jobs this year around San Francisco, and got to see some of the most beautiful properties, drive some of the nicest cars, and work at the most exclusive parties in the bay area. I met so many amazing people who work as valets. Many are students, but many are people sort of like me! People who have incredible qualifications and have had really interesting lives and have found themselves starting over in some way. I am so grateful for all the awesome people I met at that job.

I taught 6-week intro to yoga courses for some private clients. I gave some more massage virgins their first ever full-body Swedish massages. And I helped at least three people move out of their houses to get started with their next life chapters. I decided to help out more at church and went to training to become a Sunday school teacher. That has been very rewarding to shepherd some young people through their high school years in a way that was starkly different than my own (in a good way). And I tried a short stint as a gogo dancer.

I take random jobs too, and my good friend Diane found the most awesome random job for me one day this year: Getting paid to model as a zombie and walk around downtown San Francisco handing out “blood” popsicles and stickers to random people to promote Zynga’s new video game.

I made a light-painting video with my friends Jackie & Julian that helped them get onto America’s Got Talent! It was superfun and as a result I got to meet their new friend Andrew de Leon and recycle my zombie dress to do a photo shoot with him for his promotions.

I continued to take lots of people on hikes through my part of the city as part of my business “Excelsior Urban Hikes.” I met so many wonderful people from around the country, around San Francisco, and around the world who somehow found out about my tours. It was great to be able to walk around in beautiful nature areas within San Francisco to get good exercise, fresh air, and beautiful scenery. The city started to look a lot smaller than it did when I first showed up here 6 years ago.

I watched the solar eclispe from China beach in San Francisco while on a date with a Cancer. This was astrologically significant given I’m an Aries ;-) I also dated a somewhat mysterious and handsome academic professional Indian man for a couple months who enjoyed spoiling me with 5-star accommodations, fabulous dinners, and day trips. I’ve since renewed my vows to stop dating men who drive Porsches. Nothing personal ;-)

During the summer I recommitted myself to my LegalShield business as a way of earning part-time income. I attended a lot of trainings and continued to be inspired by that company and the great attitudes of the people who I befriended at the trainings. I joined a networking group to promote the company and fell in love with the awesome people I met at that group. We meet at least once a week to help each other find business, and those relationships have been very rewarding.

I took several more 4-week courses in astrology, did my first “paid” astrology reading for a friend. Went to my first 49ers game. Got to go to Montana to coach a high school throwers clinic while my college coach attended the Olympic Trials with one of his athletes. Got to see my sister and her family, and carpool to Montana and back with a really interesting character in public banking. I also took a Forex trading bootcamp and learned to trade foreign currencies.

During the summer, I started dating a new and really amazing person, an Italian artist fairly new to the US who makes the incredible digital creatures/monsters for the movies. It was so fun to spend so much time in the company of an artist, pouring through art books and images together, eating yummy Italian food, and enjoying each other’s company over the summer. At the end of the summer, he got his dream job with Lucas Films, and I moved out of the city to Berkeley, and we kind of went our separate ways. It was an epic, if short, romance and a real highlight of my year :-)

I had no intention of moving to Berkeley but somehow I got swept up in the need to change something after 5 years of living at the same residence in San Francisco with an extended family I had come to love dearly. I was craving more space, more stuff to call my own, an environment I could keep clean and put my stamp on. My friend and mentor, Coach Mike Hammerquist, had a room open up in his house and invited me to live there. It was a perfect fit for me and my cat of 8 years.

I began commuting from Berkeley to SF for work in September, and the first day using the commuter car pool we were rear-ended and I sustained my 5th whiplash injury. As a result, I got to know the limits of my health insurance plan much better, and found a wonderful chiropractor and amazing physical therapist who have nursed me back to better shape than I have been in my entire life.

I got on board for Obama again during the 2012 election year, and again was victorious. But it was during the first Obama-Romney debate that I finally had an “aha” moment (as Oprah would say), that there was something I could really do personally to make our country better. I ended up conceiving of a company that would help people get healthier on their own. It is called the Center for Public Wellness, and I will be rolling it out in the new year. It is exciting to have an idea I can put all my passion behind and I feel like it is truly my life’s calling. I attended a women’s political conference in Beverly Hills right after the election and got even more fired up about what women ought to be doing for our country.

I struggled a lot the last few months of the year following my car accident. Financially I was really struggling, physically my body was undergoing a lot of changes, and I made some risky health choices in that state which challenged my body quite a lot. I had to hitchhike for the first time and beg for money to get home or stay with friends. All-in-all I had a couple near-death experiences this year, some intentional and unintentional interesting chemical experiences, and learned a whole heck of a lot through it all.

I came back coaching in the fall with 8 strong and talented women coming out for the throws, my biggest and most dynamic group ever. The semester ended up being really challenging and enlightening at the same time, and I look forward to seeing what this young group of athletes will be able to do this year.

And finally, I decided to undergo a radical experiment in foot health and strength this fall. First, changing the way I walk drastically by wearing flat shoes, pushing off the ball of the foot more and aligning my feet under my hips straightforward. I ended up successfully creating arches in my feet for the first time in my life, and continued the progress by deciding to go barefoot for 30 days. 2 weeks in, I gave away all my shoes and became a convert for life, it was that awesome. It led to some adventures, such as getting booted off a couple buses and an airport, but those experiences just led into more better and profound experiences that have truly changed my life. I finally get to have the “dream job” I envisioned after high school: somehow working barefoot in a skirt. The health benefits have been really remarkable, as have been the sensations and learning opportunities embedded in this experience.

This inspired me to change a lot of other things about my life, such as getting rid of much of my chemicals and metals and coming into a more “natural” state. I went as far as growing out all my body hair, but changed my mind and decided that’s where I would draw the line for now :-)

The last couple weeks I’ve been looking into dating again and have enjoyed spending time hiking and having tea with a doctor, believe it or not :-) Who knows what 2013 will bring!

It has truly been an epic year and I am excited to see where life will take me next year. I’m sure I left out a bunch of other good stuff too, but oh well. Cheers! And enjoy the last couple days of this era…here’s to an awesome next 5,000 years.

More Thoughts on God

I can see the temptation
To write a spiritual story
About how we went through many lives
To finally end up
Here!
So are we building another tower of Babel?

Will our technology connect our minds
And in doing so,
Drop the walls between our perspectives
Our incarnations
And reveal the Wizard behind the curtain?

Is that why we love science so much?
Giving us glimpses into the “other”
Seeing life from their perspective
Knowing the infinite integral of us is God

That sense of unity one feels
During trips or meditation
All the endings looped to beginnings
No sense of up or down
Back or forward
Wrong or right

Just a salty wave-crash sommersault
Until we popped up and took a breath

All I know is I keep opening my eyes
And there’s a comforting continuity
That surely exists outside my psyche
How could I create what I haven’t imagined?
And yet when I see it it’s all so perfect
It’s all how I would have planned it
I can keep choosing to follow my story
It’s pretty clear where this one’s going
Though the twists and turns are delightful
And the details rich and vivid

Heel Bruising – No Shoes Day 44

They say lessons in life are repeated until learned.

Since I’ve been walking everywhere without shoes, I’ve finally realized I am still walking too heavy on my right heel. I have almost a permanent tiny bruise right in the center of that heel from catching a sharp pebble too hard there, over and over. It hurts like a mofo when it happens. And today when it happened again during my 3+ mile walk in the city, I realized it’s just on that foot!

Come to think of it, back when I used to jog with shoes on, I would have this problem where my right heel would clip my left ankle on the inside, painfully right on the bone. So my right foot probably tends to evert (I believe this because I have to invert it and move it further distal for it to land “normal”) naturally and land harder on the heel.

So now, I have to work extra hard on getting the ball of the foot down sooner on the right side. Instead of my whole heel aching at the end of a day when wearing shoes, I get instant feedback when my heel finds a rock too hard.

Still totally worth the tradeoff.

As an update, my feet are still getting stronger/muscle-sore each day. They feel and look muscle-y now, instead of like a withered sick and pale child that spent the entire winter in bed. My hamstrings are also getting stronger (as evidenced by their tightness).

I had some interesting borderline numbness today, and noticed my big toe and next toe were a little too buddy-buddy during much of my hike on the cold ground. Probably the longest my toes have spent in the coldest weather (not including surfing in the winter here when entire foot would go numb) Seemed like the more ball pressure I used the more they spread out, though.

Enough for today…