A moment for day 5

Last night, after I posted my update, I listened to a podcast I downloaded about self-discipline. Go me for thinking ahead and predicting that I may need some advice on the subject. I really enjoyed it even though it is not a podcast I regularly listen to. If you are in need of a pick me up, but also not being yelled at by some 35 year old gym bro about discipline I suggest you give it a listen. It was on Emma Chamberlin’s Anything Goes Podcast and was fittingly titled Self Discipline. I went to bed with some re-found spirit and decided that tomorrow was going to go a little differently.

I started off today with a little 2 mile run around the Nebraska Campsite. There was a lovely paved trail and it wrapped around a… bog? It was marshy, but pretty is what I will say. I then did some yoga and again practiced my little tree pose. I wrote a lot of ideas down form my tree pose blog post, but there is still some stuff I need to add and work on so you will have to wait.

During the time I was just statically stretching, I listened again to a recording of that Rabbi I mentioned earlier. I know that I am personally inclined to align myself with what he is teaching about, but there were some really stand out moments that I enjoyed. If you are not here to hear about Liz’s religious and spiritual mumbo jumbo, then please skip ahead to the next paragraph… Last chance…He went over an interpretation of the Torah that says that when Adam woke up in the Garden of Eden it was by no means a garden, but rather a desolate waste land with nothing really there. Now, if you are familiar with the story of creation, this doesn’t make any sense since HaShem had supposedly created trees and flowers on the third day, three days before they created Adam. So, how does the interpretation reconcile this? They say that HaShem had created everything leading up until this point in it’s potential form. The concept of trees of flowers, of light, of everything up until this point was simply a concept and nothing more. Once human consciousness came upon the earth, there was this lacking of every other concepts’ physical form. It became the responsibility of the human consciousness to connect with the divine infiniteness and bring these potential forms into physical reality. The interpretation says this is done through prayer, which really is just a connection with the divine or HaShem. I found this to be really interesting. The idea that there is meant to be a lacking that can be addressed through connecting to something greater than the individual body of ego is profoundly important and echos the feeling of longing I have been reminiscing about. It put me a bit at ease to recognize that the longing I feel, my intuition that there is a lacking in my life, is what I am meant to feel and that there is a way to address it. I am not entirely sure how to get this divine connection that should help me on my journey, but I am here to learn and to grow, so not knowing is par for the course and bound to change.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming. I finished my book today and I am not sure how to feel about it. It felt like watching one of those movies where you are just left with a lot to think about and are happy with the movie because it left you in thought, but at the same time you really have very little to say about the cinematography or sound design. This book made me feel so much without having many things I would consider necessary to a story. It is a slice of life type book with no real plot or solid ending. With that being said, this book tackles very broad topics and does so with grace and poignancy. Another recommendation for all of you, please go read “Happy Hour” by Marlowe Granados. It is a beautiful book and I am glad it is how I started my reading for this trip. If we live together, you can absolutely barrow my copy when we all return at the end of summer.

Now, I am sure you are wondering, how is the campsite in Iowa…Freaking Awesome! It turned out to not be free, but it has showers! Hot showers! Clean hot showers! I am pleased to say the least. It is on wildlife conservation land, so there are animals all about. A deer walked like 15 feet in front of me while I was writing this and now there are two bunnies playing together in the tall grass across the road. Let me repeat… there are two bunnies playing in the tall grass! This is a beautiful place. It is hot, but also so amazingly green. Please enjoy this photo of my view from where I am sitting right now.

Thank you all for you listening. I will talk with you tomorrow when I head into Minnesota- the state!