Wild Women – Page 9 – Karen's New York Love Affair

ChiRunning and Yoga at BC Wilderness Visions

July 16-17, 2011 – CANCELLED

$349 includes teaching fees and delicious organic vegetarian lunch, snacks, and tea

Location: Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, North Vancouver

9:30 – 4:30, Saturday & Sunday

Guides: Angela and Karen are teaming up for the second year in a row. For a glimpse into the awesome time had by all at last year’s ChiRunning and yoga retreat, see here.

Learn to run free of injury!
Learn to run effortlessly!
Learn to be energy efficient!
Learn how to create Chi Energy Flow!

Angela no longer has Achilles tendonitis since using the ChiRunning form, which combines the inner focus and flow of T’ai Chi with the power and energy of running to create a revolutionary running form and philosophy that takes the pounding, pain, and potential damage out of the sport of running. The ChiRunning program increases mental clarity and focus, enhances the joy of running, and turns running into a safe and effective life-long program for health, fitness, and well-being. Angela has run 20 marathons and completed Iron Man Canada in 2008.

Karen has developed a yoga practice that supports long distance running. Combining yoga with running helped her overcome knee pain and IT band problems, to cross the threshold from the 10K distance to the half-marathon! Her most adventurous race was the Klondike Road Relay from Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon. Yoga is a millenia-old discipline that provides the perfect complement to your running practice. It brings suppleness to the entire body, builds core strength, and safely releases the lactic acid that builds up in the muscles during a run. The relaxation that yoga brings allows your body to run for longer distances with ease.

This 2-day non-residential retreat in the beautiful North Shore mountains will teach you the fundamentals of the ChiRunning form as well as a post-run yoga practice that is more fun than the old stretches you learned in gym class!

Mornings will begin with a group check-in in the crystal-clear mountain air, followed by running and yoga. In the afternoon we’ll teach you methods for connecting with the Chi energy in nature, and then give you a chance to practice what you’ve learned with more ChiRunning. The days will end with a final yoga session to send you home feeling relaxed and connected with nature and yourself.

This weekend retreat will give you time and space to connect with your body and with nature, and you’ll return to the city feeling refreshed and enlivened.

Optional reading: ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running, by Danny Dreyer and Katherine Dreyer

To register, please fill in the online Registration Form. For payment information, see Fees. We’ll send you directions and a suggested gear list when you register.

Guides

Karen Rempel is the director of Monkey Valley Retreat Centre. She leads retreats at the centre, and also apprentices on vision fasts in Colorado and California. She teaches tools to help people find healing and guidance in nature, including the medicine walk, medicine wheel, four shields of (human) nature, other ecopsychology methods, and yoga and meditation, as well as guiding questers on vision fasts.

After a decade of working as a technical writer, she earned a master’s degree in ecopsychology from Naropa University, and trained as a vision fast guide at the School of Lost Borders. She has studied the medicine wheel since 2003 and has been a student of the Diamond Approach for many years. She is a registered yoga teacher and Reiki master, committed to providing a safe environment for self exploration and growth. She is a member of the Wilderness Guides Council.

Munro Sickafoose is a vision quest guide, an initiated man, whitewater river guide, and ceremonial leader. He has been deeply involved with indigenous earth–based ceremonies for many years. He trained as a vision quest guide at the School of Lost Borders, and has been leading groups and individuals in the wild since 1996. He has also trained at the Ojai Foundation as a facilitator in the Way of Council. He is currently Netkeeper of the Wilderness Guides Council, and is working towards a Masters of Divinity degree.

He guides at Monkey Valley and in Oregon and Washington. He also guides through the School of Lost Borders, teaching a program on the four shields of leadership with his wife, Susanna Maida. Visit his web site for details of other guiding trips he has planned.

Angela James has run 18 marathons and completed Iron Man Canada in August 2008. Angela has been a Team in Training marathon coach with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) groundbreaking charity sports training program since 2004. She no longer has Achilles tendonitis since using the ChiRunning form. Now Vancouver’s only certified ChiRunning instructor, she plans to give workshops all over the world teaching others this revolutionary technique. Her shining spirit uplifts and motivates everyone she teaches.

Angela incorporates ChiLiving as a practice along with her tea business. “Chi Tea” is her catch phrase, because she believes so strongly in the benefits of both ChiRunning and health-promoting, organic Rooibos tea. Angela is also an accomplished cello player. Visit her web site to learn about Angela’s upcoming ChiRunning workshops in Vancouver.

Kim Ashley guides vision fasts at Monkey Valley and is a life coach. She is the founder of Transformational Learning and Coaching. She is a PhD candidate in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, is a certified life coach through NLP and Coaching Institute of California, and is a member of the International Coach Federation.

She trained as a vision fast guide at the School of Lost Borders. Her background and education blend the ancient wisdom traditions of the East with contemporary success principles of the West, resulting in a step-by-step coaching approach to living with greater courage, balance, abundance, and happiness. She loves walking in the wilderness with her dog, Chai.

You are what you eat—sort of!

As you may recall, I have explored the subject of anger from many different perspectives—anger as it relates to the essential aspect of strength; anger arising from psychological issues; anger as a defense mechanism and a character trait. I have personally worked on my own anger many times during nature ceremonies, and I’ve told you some of those stories here. I’ve also explored anger with my spiritual teachers, therapists, and even a naturopath. I recently discovered a new key to understanding anger. It is perhaps the simplest method of all: looking at how what and when I eat affects my mood, including such impacts as irritation, frustration, a dry itchy feeling, and plain old grumpiness!

Potatoes not Prozac

My sister Kirsten turned me on to a book called Potatoes not Prozac, by Kathleen DesMaisons. Kathleen describes how what we eat, and when, affects three biochemical systems in our bodies that affect mood: blood sugar levels, serotonin (a brain chemical), and beta-endorphin (another brain chemical). She also advances the theory that some of us are “sugar sensitive,” which means that our body chemistry responds more drastically to sugar and other refined carbohydrates. I was very interested in this theory. Years of meditating, yoga, running, and seeking of self knowledge have had very little impact on the reactivity that goes on in me. It has seemed to be totally beyond my control, no matter how hard I try or how good my intentions.

Sugar sensitivity is common for people who have addiction in their families, and as Gabor Maté and others have written, brain chemistry is a strong factor in addiction. Since brain chemistry is affected by genetics, as well as early experiences, it is not surprising that addiction and the type of brain chemistry that is sugar sensitive would run in the family. Kathleen discovered the impact of eating habits, including sugar consumption, on our feeling of well-being through her work with alcoholics. This prompted her to pursue a PhD in addictive nutrition, so she could study the subject more deeply. Over the years she has worked with thousands of people. In some studies she has done, those who follow her plan have a 92% success rate in achieving sobriety. Previously in the field of treatment for alchoholism, a 25% success rate was considered good. That’s a pretty strong testament to the effectiveness of her plan in helping people with addictions to create lasting change!

By now you may be wondering whether you are sugar sensitive. The test that Kathleen offers in her book is to imagine that you walk into your kitchen at home and find a plate of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies on the counter. Their warm chocolatey smell greets you as you enter the room. You don’t feel hungry. No one is around to defend the cookies or observe your actions. What do you do? Evidently, there are some people who would not eat a cookie! Can you believe it? This is hard for me to imagine. For me it’s a no-brainer. In real life I might wonder who had put the cookies there and whether they were poisoned. But in the imaginary exercise, I would not hesitate to eat a cookie. How about you?

Kathleen also has a checklist of ten items to determine whether one is sugar sensitive. Interestingly, one of the items is “I have a history of anger that sometimes surprises even me.” Wow, there it is in black and white. This is probably the first time I have seen an articulation of a connection between sugar and anger. The history part is true for me too, and it does surprise me.

A history of anger

When I was at Monkey Valley I looked through a box of journals, in order to select the ones that contain my record of vision quests I’ve been on. I glanced at a few other journals at random, just to see what I’d written about. There was a journal from grade ten. In it I was raging at my father, swearing in every sentence, angry and hateful. What a shock! I didn’t remember feeling that way, much less writing it down. I flipped open a journal from 1995 or so. I saw an entry in which I was raging at a friend for something she had done. Angry, reactive, hateful sentences filled the page. I looked at a journal from 2007. Rage at another friend. The same kind of angry, hateful language. I was really shocked to discover this. Although I know I am prone to anger and reactivity, I truly did not recall writing these entries, or having those feelings towards my friends. And to see that the pattern stretched back thirty years! What a revelation. And I don’t doubt that my sugar consumption really mushroomed in junior high, once I was earning my own money and could buy sweets whenever I wanted. Add that to sugary breakfast cereals and sweet desserts every night with dinner, and there was a lot of sugar creating havoc in my body. Could early and continuous sugar consumption have had a co-relation to decades of anger?

Reading this book was like finding a life-line that maybe I could cling to and use to pull myself out of the swamp of reactivity that I have been swimming around in my whole life. Obviously I can’t reveal the contents of the entire book here, but I’m going to hit a few of the high points.

Blood sugar level

Some of the symptoms of low blood sugar:

Feeling tired all the time
Feeling tired for no reason
Restless, can’t keep still
Easily frustrated
Trouble concentrating
More irritable than usual
Gets angry unexpectedly

These are all things I experience most days.

Serotonin level

Some of the symptoms of low serotonin:

Depressed
Flies off the handle
Reactive
Craves sweets (some people crave bread, pasta, and cereal)

Again, I’ve selected the ones that I experience the most, including the ones related to anger.

Beta-endorphin level

Some of the symptoms of low beta-endorphin:

Low pain tolerance or tolerance for discomfort (jumpy)
Tearful, reactive
Low self-esteem
Overwhelmed by other’s pain
Feelings of isolation
Depressed, hopeless
Feels “done to” by others (blaming, being a victim)
Craves sugar

She’s been reading my mail!

Optimal levels of these three

Sugar sensitive people have a brain chemistry that is disposed to producing low quantities of serotonin and beta-endorphin, which is why we seek to simulate the effects of these brain chemicals by using sugar. But when all the levels of blood sugar, serotonin, and beta-endorphins are optimal this is how we would feel:

Energetic, and tired when appropriate
Relaxed, clear, focused
Able to deal with problems effectively
Easy going, even-tempered
Hopeful, optimistic
Reflective, responsive
Able to seek help
Sensitive, sympathetic
High self-esteem
Compassionate
Connected to and in touch with others
Takes personal responsibility
Euphoric!

I was especially struck by how these three aspects of our physical chemistry can affect our self-esteem and whether we feel isolated or connected to others. For me, I have often avoided contact with others because it triggered so much reactivity, but the price I paid was feeling very isolated, alone, and that nobody cared about me. It is remarkable to learn that eating habits played a role in this dynamic!

Keeping a food journal

The first step towards balancing sugar sensitivity, in the first edition of Potatoes not Prozac (1998), is to keep a food journal. I’ve been doing that for two months now. The idea of the journal is just to actually see what I am doing, clearly, in black and white. Not to judge it. As many of you may know, for the past few years my breakfast has consisted of two bars of exquisite organic dark chocolate. So that is what I put down. I also noted when I ate, and how I felt both physically and emotionally. What a goldmine of information! Kathleen talks about how this journal becomes a way of listening to my body speak to me. And it has been telling me a lot!

What I was struck by, after I’d been keeping the journal for about a month, was how erratic my eating habits were. The times for the various meals fluctuated wildly, with dinner sometimes as late as 11 PM. And when I was too busy to stop for a meal, I discovered that I used sugar to keep myself going. So depending on the day, I might have a chocolate at 6:00. A toffee at 7:00. Maybe an apple at 8:00. Another snack at 9:00. And finally, a proper dinner at 10:00 PM. Now that I knew the effects on my blood sugar from eating sweets (and what the body does to try to re-establish homeostasis), I felt sad to see how much trauma I was subjecting my body to by snacking this way. I also felt sad to see how I was treating myself so badly by forcing myself to wait to eat lunch and dinner. (Accomplishing things and “doing” was more important than stopping to care for myself.) Just seeing the patterns helped me to feel compassion for my physical self, and the desire to treat my body better.

The seven steps

Kathleen’s plan is to gently and gradually shift to healthier eating habits for life. It is a seven-step plan, and I’ve followed a few of the steps now. In the new edition (2008) of her book, step one is to start eating breakfast with protein and a complex carbohydrate (for example, whole wheat toast or oatmeal), within an hour of getting up. It doesn’t even require giving up the chocolate, just adding the protein and complex carb. For me this was a huge step, to shift away from my chocolate for breakfast habit. Just contemplating eating something else first thing in the morning felt distasteful to me. So I waited for a time when my life was making very little demands on me, so I could make this big change with as little stress as possible. I did it while I was at Monkey Valley, earlier this month.

I have now had a breakfast with 1/3 of my body’s daily protein requirements, and a complex carbohydrate, within an hour of waking, 19 times! I have also been following step three, which is to eat three meals a day with protein, no more than 5-6 hours apart, and if snacking, to include a protein and a complex carbohydrate. I’ve done that for 19 days too. I also drastically reduced my sugar consumption. In this time period I’ve had not even two whole chocolate bars. If you can do math, you will realize that with my prior habits, I would have consumed 38 bars of chocolate in this same amount of time!

Beforehand (the first week I kept a food journal), my feelings were all over the place. I looked like the queen of the mood swings. Lots of highs and lows. And some anxiety.

Although I have had many of the same feelings and physical sensations since shifting my eating habits, I haven’t had the buzz or high from the sugar snacking, and overall I feel much more balanced and stable, with less anxiety. Mind you, in the “before” I was working and dealing with a lot of people and different situations, while during the “after” period I am on holiday. That could account for the lower anxiety!

Anyway, it is early days yet, but I believe that by following this food plan I am treating my body much better. I feel that eating a regular breakfast and having dinner at a normal time are huge accomplishments. I like this change in lifestyle and the feeling of stability it brings. I know that my brain chemistry will continue to adjust over time.

I am so excited about the potential for healing and balance that Kathleen offers in Potatoes not Prozac. She calls her plan “Radiant Recovery.” I bought copies of the book for my family members, and I’m sharing the news with you here, because I truly believe that for some of us, this new information about brain chemistry could solve the mystery of why we never feel quite right. For me, I hope it will be the final missing piece in the puzzle of anger.

Part 5: Ceremony for owl and the wild ones

As I have mentioned previously, a wise wild woman suggested that the great grey owls I encountered this summer were angry. I considered her interpretation of the events, and decided to follow her suggestion of performing a ceremony to let the owls know of my good intentions.

I have long been interested in sacred ceremony and ritual, and first learned the pagan method of working with the four directions. Interestingly, the four directions, which often correspond to the four elements of water, earth, air, and fire, are used in many cultures the world over. The pagan rituals I learned had their roots in Celtic traditions. When I studied to become a vision fast guide, the same four elements were assigned in the same order around the wheel, but a quarter turn further along! This usage arose out of the ways of the Native American traditions of the Lakota people. However, the roots for the Lakota medicine wheel are said to arise from the ceremonies of the ancient Mayan people. It can become very confusing and perhaps impossible to determine which traditions originated where.

But what is clear is that earth-based peoples the world over have identified the usefulness of a nature-based psychology and ceremony that uses the four directions, orienting by the path of the sun across the sky from east to west and the north and south poles of the earth. Similarly, different cultures have selected similar elements as being significant to work with, including the four I’ve named. Other cultures sometimes incorporate additional elements too. For example, in both Buddhist ceremony and pagan ritual the element of ether or space is sometimes used. The Dagara people of West Central Africa use the elements of earth, water, fire, mineral, and nature (green growing things).

I’d like to tell you about a way of beginning a ceremony that I learned at the School of Lost Borders. This ceremony is used by many different Native American and First Nations peoples. It involves calling in the spirits of the seven directions (earth, sky, and centre are the other three) with the use of the smoke of the sacred sage plant.

I put an egg-sized amount of dried sage leaves into a seashell bowl, and lit different spots with a wooden match. I blew on the embers to help the leaves burn. When the sage was smoking nicely, there in my kitchen, I began by greeting the spirits of the east and asking them to be with me in the ceremony. I named a few of the qualities of the east direction, and offered the smoke of the sacred sage to the spirits. Then I repeated this for the other six directions. This act is called “calling in the directions” and it is often performed at the beginning of nature ceremony.

The second step is to smudge oneself with the smoke, for purification, and also to help shift consciousness into a ceremonial openness. If there is a group, the smudge bowl is usually passed clockwise around the circle, and each person smudges the parts of their body they feel moved to cleanse. I smudged my whole body from head to toe, using an eagle feather to brush the smoke over the front and back of my body.

Now I was ready to greet the owls. My plan was to drive to the North Shore, and run through the woods until I came to the place where the owls lived. Since I would be running, I didn’t want to bring all the gear to do the smudging in the woods. But I will tell you, this is the first time I’ve done a ceremony in stages like this. Which is a teaching about ceremony: it is creative, flexible, and responsive to circumstances! Before I left the house, I did tuck a few items for the ceremony into the pockets of my running jacket. Plus of course grabbed my driver’s license and cell phone in case of emergency! I had another ceremonial object waiting in the car, which I would carry while I ran…

I drove over to the North Shore, taking the route up Lynn Valley Road rather than Lillooet Road because I knew I wouldn’t be finished before the gates at the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve were locked. It was getting near dusk already. I parked near the trail that crossed Lynn Creek, and ran through the woods until I reached the place where I had the two owl encounters. I had noted well the tall dead tree that the owls had perched on during both encounters, beside a small creek at a bend in the path. I’ve been on this trail hundreds of times, so it was easy to find the spot again. From their behaviour, I believe this tree marked the edge of the great grey owls’ territory.

I have to tell you, I felt somewhat fearful that the owls would appear during the ceremony, and perhaps attack my poor head again. I even wore my glasses while running (something I never do) so that I would be able to see them better if they appeared. So I was on the alert for their presence, and performed the ceremony rather more quickly than I might have otherwise.

I carefully climbed down the steep bank in the semi-darkness to a very wide root that was at the base of the owl-tree. Following my wise guide’s suggestion, I had brought a bouquet of flowers for the owls, which I tucked behind the root so they stood up nicely. Then I took out a small pyrex bowl and placed it on the wide root. I filled the bowl with a mixture of sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and sesame seeds. I blessed the spot with my hands using Reiki. Then I climbed back up onto the path.

Whew! No sign of the owls yet. But I was sure that they were aware of my presence. I faced downhill, into their territory, and addressed the owls quite loudly. I figured it was unlikely anyone would come along the path since it was almost dark, and the creek was bubbling away at high volume, so my voice was drowned out anyway. But I trusted that the owls would hear what I had to say.

First I thanked them for the blessing of the encounters I had with them, and told them that I had meant no harm. I expressed my appreciation for the learning I have received, and told them I heard their message that they and the other wild creatures need wild places to live in. That people are encroaching too much, and not leaving them the room they need to thrive. I expressed my intention to help protect the wild creatures and wild places. I also explained about the offerings I had brought; the red and yellow of the tulips represented the red strength of the owls and my golden joy at meeting them, combined together into a single flower. The seeds I confessed I didn’t think they would eat, although some birds do eat seeds. But perhaps their favourite prey, the vole, would eat the seeds. Thus my hope was to nourish the creatures that would feed them. I wasn’t about to bring some voles or mice as an offering! (But I didn’t say that.)

After I had said everything I could think of to the owls, I blessed the land and all the creatures who live there, again using Reiki. I bowed, rose, and then turned and headed back up the path. An interesting thing happened as I was driving home. It was now dark, and all the tail lights, head lights, and traffic lights appeared as bursts of colour. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that my pupils were very dilated, like the eyes of the owl! It just so happened that I had an eye exam earlier that day, and my pupils were dilated from the drops the optometrist gave me. But it seemed fitting that I was now seeing through the eyes of the owl!

The final step of the ceremony was to close it where I had opened it, in the kitchen. I held the eagle feather up, faced east, and thanked all the spirits for being with me in the ceremony. Then I scattered the ashes of the sage on the wind.

I performed this ceremony on Wednesday. Saturday morning, an email from the Green Party arrived in my inbox. It was a call for volunteers to fill three roles in the party leadership, including Publications Chair. Wow! A role I am completely qualified to perform, right now, with my existing skills and life experiences. I went to the Green Party website to have a look at their policies and documentation, and my heart sang as I reviewed their 10 Core Principles. They include sustainability, ecological wisdom, social justice, respect for diversity, non-violence, and participatory democracy! My prayer for the right work I can do to help protect the wild ones has been answered! And I don’t even have to go to law school for three years! 🙂 I think this is strong medicine. Maybe it’s owl medicine.

November is novel writing month!

I have come to Monkey Valley for the month of November to work on a writing project that I’ve had in mind since September 2007. It has taken a while to get up to speed with this project; I’ll tell you more about that later. But the cool thing is that some friends are also writing this month, and the inspiration that brings is incredible! My friend Kim Ashley in Grass Valley, CA is working on her PhD dissertation, on themes revolving around the vision quest. And my friend Mike Reynolds in Vancouver is working on a novel.

Mike told me about a book called No Plot? No Problem! It is written by San Francisco author Chris Baty, founder of the National Novel Writing Month. November is that month! Can you believe it, people all around the world are writing novels right now!! According to the website for NaNoWriMo, people who are writing their novels have already written 1,172,613,912 words in November 2010! The best part is, everyone who completes 50,000 words by the end of November is a winner!

It is very inspiring to talk to my friends on the phone about how our writing is going (or not going), and I am sure that there is a world-wide energy that is supporting us all to write. Thanks, Chris Baty! I hope I can ride that wave and get a good start on my book. But for today, I’m noodling around on my blog…

Chris asks “What makes a good novel, to you?” And I thought it would be fun to think about this, even though I am writing creative non-fiction, not a novel. So here are my answers. What are yours?

interesting characters
strong women characters
insights into human nature that help me understand people and the world better
a sense of people really interacting with each other—lots of dialogue
funny dialogue or situations that make me laugh out loud
a sense of the goodness of human nature (I believe this arises out of the goodness of the nature of the author)
set in a time or place I’ve never been in so I learn about it—details that help me see it and believe it’s real
some tension, but not too much

This got me thinking about favourite novels:

Favourite novels from childhood

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Noah’s Castle by John Rowe Townsend
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Everything by Enid Blyton, especially the adventure series and the boarding school mysteries

Favourite novels from adolescence and adulthood

The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Stand by Stephen King
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Tent Peg & everything by Aritha van Herk
The Accidental Tourist & everything by Anne Tyler
Most everything by Agatha Christie
Everything by Janet Evanovich
Everything by Alexander McCall Smith

Looking at these titles, I see a theme of enjoying fantasy, humour, mystery, and the absurd. I guess life is serious and difficult enough; when I’m reading a novel I want pleasure, some intelligence but not too much, and I love a good mystery! What about you, dear reader? Who are your favourite authors? What are your favourite novels? I invite you to comment and share the wonders with the incredibly wide readership of this blog!

And if you feel like you’ve always wanted to write a novel, you don’t have to wait until next November to do it, but you could!

Goodbye to Donald

I have been putting off writing this posting, but the time has come. Visitors to Monkey Valley will be sad to learn that Donald the cat has gone. He disappeared while I was at a retreat in California in August. He has been missing for two and a half months now. Since Donald has gone missing before, at first I didn’t take it too seriously. You may recall the time he followed a blonde, perfumed woman home and started living with her! Another cute little female cat went missing at the same time, so I imagine that the two of them eloped together. However, neighbours all around reported seeing a lot of coyote activity around the time these two cats went missing, so that is always another possibility.

I called the SPCA many times, and put an ad on Craigslist, as well as a poster on the light post at Nanaimo and Wall Street. There were a few false leads, but Donald did not turn up. Still, the fact of his being gone didn’t really sink in, and I took it pretty lightly. On other occasions when he’s gone missing I have cried and thought about the early days when he first came into my home at Monkey Valley, a flea-ridden little bundle of fur that I had to keep in quarantine so that he wouldn’t infest the other cat I had at the time. I cried about his sad first days here, and wished I’d done things differently. I remember going into the bathroom where he was detained, several times a day, to give him food and affection. He climbed onto my lap and mewed and purred and was so happy to have some attention.

Little did the poor kitty know that he was living with mood-swing mama! I regret all the times I had angry outbursts around the house, not directed at him, but I think affecting him nonetheless. I wonder if these outbursts drove him out of the house!

Anyone who knows Donald knows what a curious adventurer he is. He spent most of the time in Vancouver out on the street prowling around, or else in other people’s houses! If they had a cat, he’d be sure to try to eat their cat’s food. One time he sampled a pie that my friend Azusa had left on the counter. He snuck into their place in the middle of the night, and dug into the pie like a starving gypsy. Another time he knocked their cat Himiko’s bag of cat food off the top of the fridge, causing a major kibble spill on the kitchen floor! The neighbours beside us reported that one evening they had a visitor from England, and Donald spent the night sleeping with him!

When we moved to Wall Street, Donald was again my emissary into the neighbourhood. He hopped through windows and slunk through cat doors, and was soon known by all the neighbours in the area—long before anyone knew my name they knew who Donald was!

The concern when Donald went missing was very moving to me. Emails were sent around the neighbourhood, and people I’d never met came up to me to ask if Donald had come home. One woman said Donald was a very kind cat. What an astonishing testimony! Especially since he often hissed at me when I picked him up! The sad thing was that Donald really didn’t seem to like being around me. He didn’t want to be at home with me. He always preferred to be outside. Maybe he was a cat with a mission, spreading sunshine to all he encountered!

As I have told some of you before, he was a totally different cat at Monkey Valley. Maybe because here I’m the only game in town, he usually hung around with me all day long, and he would come lay on the couch with me and purr in the evenings. He only did that a handful of times in Vancouver during the six years we were together!

So coming home to Monkey Valley this month, the loss of Donald finally hit me. In Vancouver we both had our own friends, and our own lives. But up here, we just had each other. The first night I was in the tub, and I could have sworn I heard Donald scamper up the stairs and give a little sneeze like he used to do. I wondered if Donald’s ghost was here, in the place he loved the most. (Later I realized it must have been a pack rat scaling the outside log wall of the cabin.)

I cried when I saw the ball of red string that was one of Donald’s favourite toys. He got it at the SPCA one time when I was stressed out doing my master’s degree and took him and the other cat there for a cooling off period. The next day when I went back, Crush had already been adopted, but that rapscallion Donald was still there, and I took him home, together with his new toy. All these memories, and reminders of when I was not the kind of person I wish to be! I suppose that Donald taught me a lot. What I miss the most is the purry little one whom I held in my arms.

Lots of visitors to Monkey Valley will recall Donald racing down the path to the medicine wheel, or scratching at their tents while they were trying to sleep. Many people took photos of him, drawn to capture the essence of his supreme cat self. I hope you enjoy these pictures of Donald, and join me in wishing him well, wherever he may be. Goodbye Donald. May your spirit be at peace.

Part 3: Seeking understanding and the wisdom of the owl

These encounters with the owls prompted me to do some research to learn more about them. A great resource I found online is The Owl Pages. I also consulted Ted Andrews’ Animal Speak, as always.

I learned that the great grey owl (gray to you American readers) is the provincial bird emblem of Manitoba. According to The Owl Pages, they are known to be very aggressive near their nest, and have driven off predators as large as black bears! I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad. They are one of the largest owls in the world, though the ones I saw were not as large as they can get: 28″ tall with a wingspan of 56″! Evidently they have lived to 40 years of age in captivity. No wonder there is a saying about the wise old owl!

These sources of information are helpful in extracting meaning from the experience, but the deepest meaning must come from within…

What does this have to do with my indigenous soul?

The day after the owl struck me there were scabs on my head. The owl had definitely permeated my physical boundary and entered into my body. I wished I had a wise teacher I could tell the story to, who could tell me what this meant. I wished I was in apprenticeship with a medicine woman or man who would guide and teach me. How can I be the guide, and the one whom others turn to for guidance, when I know so little? I have learned from many wise teachers, and I could have called on one of them to talk about what happened. If fact, I did have the opportunity to do this some weeks later. But at the time of the event, I wished to be part of a community where my medicine teacher was nearby. I have idealized the times when our peoples lived in smaller groups, in communities of people with elders to turn to, and a shaman or medicine woman for counsel, and where each of us had our role or place in the community. I think this desire to live in a close, small community is part of the remembrance of my indigenous soul of an earlier time when we did live together in harmony with the land. It is part of the pleasure of meeting in groups to go on the vision quest. It is a re-creation of how we used to live, and it always feels so right.

And so it is with my loneliness for connection with the animal world. I believe this is an expression of my indigenous soul as well. We grew up and evolved together with the animals. The way we live in now, in a planet shaped by 10,000 years of agriculture, forestry, and domination over the natural world, has made the animals afraid of us. Contact with animals is a gift I have been fortunate to experience many times on vision quests. And occasionally on runs through the woods, as I have described here. My indigenous soul knows that this encounter had meaning and significance. Maybe my indigenous soul even knows what the meaning is. However, my city self, ego self, Karen-in-the-world struggles to find her way to that deeper place that knows the truth about messages from wild creatures.

When I am out on a vision quest, or during those periods of time when I have lived in the wilderness, it is not so hard to know that deeper place. It is much more difficult in the city, in the midst of the daily concerns and pressures of earning a living and meeting responsibilities. It is hard to quiet and slow down enough to tune into the still place of my indigenous soul. But more than this everyday difficulty, when that owl hit me in the head, it reminded me of my father hitting me in the head when I was a child. It was a shock, and I dare say reactivated early trauma. The feeling of betrayal that nature would treat me this way was extremely upsetting and shook my whole view of the natural world as my friend, my safe place, the place that cared about me. It shook my faith in my indigenous soul. It has been hard to find my way back.

The wisdom of the owl

My medicine teacher, when I had the opportunity to talk with her in California a few weeks later, said that the owl put its medicine right in me by striking me on the head like that. This is what I wanted to hear. That there was something good about what had happened. That it meant I was special. This is the truth of the indigenous soul, surely? The message that owl has for me? That I am wise like the owl, have keen hearing, can pierce into the depths of people’s souls and true intentions? This is the kind of meaning I have sought from nature; to know myself and my strengths more accurately.

But you know, I don’t think this is the meaning of the owl encounters. The shock of being struck has kept me from running in that lush green place that was my favourite place to go. There is a learning here about respect. Respect for the wild animals and their ways. Respect for the vast force of nature. Though I am a small part of it, it is not all about me. There are large and mysterious processes at work of which I know little. Perhaps some humbleness is in order. A creature weighing only four pounds scared the indigenous soul right out of me! That should teach me something about respect. Clearly it’s not an either-or proposition of fear or oneness. But a call to a larger view that includes a healthy respect, a wiser understanding of the wild ones, and the oneness too.

At the beginning of this story I was wrapped up in who should do the cooking, and it seemed like a life-or-death question. The owls thought I was a threat to them, and their defensive maneuvers were in response to a perception of a life-or-death situation. I think we were both wrong! In the larger view I can take now, several months later, I think the life-or-death situation is a much bigger one, in which our animal friends are being forced off the planet through human expansion and exploitation. I feel the call to my indigenous soul to bring all of my resources to bear in doing what I can to protect them. I am being called to be much bigger than I ever thought I could. I am considering studying environmental law so that I will have the power and knowledge to do something more concrete to help. May I keep hearing the call of my indigenous soul, and discover the best way that I can help my animal kin. May we all. Continued here…

Photo © Rossano Russo, displayed on The Owl Pages. Used with permission.

The White Mouse of the Klondike

Reporting back to you after completing the Klondike Road Relay last weekend, I have to say it was an amazing experience, an awesome race, and a great trip to the great white north.

My leg of the race (leg 4 of 10) began at the Canada Customs border between Alaska and BC. Just as Gordon finished leg 3 and handed off to me, a camper drove up blasting music. Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” started me off in the right spirit! As I passed the parking lot and entered the darkness, I saw a White Mouse cross the road in front of me. This was a very good omen.

In World War II, Nancy Wake was an allied spy known as the White Mouse. She performed all kinds of heroic feats, including riding a bicycle for 500 KM over a three day period to re-establish a coded wireless communication network which was essential for the allied cause. What an inspiring beginning to my run! If only I had such an important role to play in life.

But for this journey, the goal was to run the distance for my team, and not let them down. This was my first relay race since I was a teenager, and I found that the motivation of meeting the time I had set so that I didn’t let down my team mates was a strong motivation indeed. Plus, the support vehicle following a few dozen metres behind me made me feel like a superstar sports athlete. Any time I needed water, they’d pull up beside me and hand it to me, and ask if there was anything else I needed. What star treatment!

I had a great run, running really hard, pushing myself at about 95% capacity the whole time. There were no kilometre markers, so I didn’t know whether I was keeping the pace I had promised. But 8 KM into the leg I crossed a railroad track. My time was 46:45, well under 48:00 minutes or the 6 minute/KM pace I had predicted. Once I knew I was on track, I relaxed a little, and really got into the rhythm of the running.

There were a few moments of bliss on the run, in the dark, on a mysterious high mountain pass in the north of the world. I could see radiant light in the darkness, and knew that this was a place I could leave behind a burden I was carrying. I let it slide off my shoulders, up there on that mountain pass, and I swear I returned home without that burden.

So the race was terrific, and so was the entire trip to Whitehorse. I met an artist named Joyce Majiski, and purchased one of her amazing paintings of caribou, called Blue Bou. I met a Juno-nominated singer-songwriter, Anne Louise Genest (of the band Annie Lou), and found out we have friends and acquaintances in common. She told me about a book her sister, another Whitehorse resident, had just published (The Boreal Gourmet: Adventures in Northern Cooking, by Michele Genest). I bought two copies at Mac’s Fireweed Books. By the way, there was a field of spiky magenta fireweed beside the road where my leg ended!

The area around Whitehorse was in glorious fall colour. After a super-fun dance party Saturday night, some of my team went for an 8:00 AM run along the Yukon River Sunday morning. I swear I’ve never run that soon after a race before, but it felt amazing.

The final wonderful gift of the trip was learning about a writer’s residential retreat at Berton House in Dawson City, 500 KM further north than Whitehorse. I know the north is calling to me. I harken to the call. I spent the better part of today putting together my application for a 3-month stay at the Berton House. Wish me luck!

Klondike here I come!

The time has come! I leave for the airport in an hour, to fly up to the beautiful Whitehorse, YT, for the Klondike Road Relay! I told you before about my aggressive 10-week training schedule. As you might expect, I stuck to the schedule like glue for the first five weeks, culminating with a 2-hour run on August 8. Then I was at Monkey Valley for a week and the training fell apart. But I feel good to go, and well rested.

I’m so excited about seeing Whitehorse again. I was there 10 years ago, and also 20 years ago. I’ve got a hankering for the wild open spaces of the north, and would love to be graced with a vision of the aurora borealis. Plus, my friend Gordon put together a great team and lots of fun activities for us, including a helicopter tour and a visit to the local hotsprings! To be continued…

Here, for those of you who are interested, is an accounting of my endorphin rush experiment, from July 4 to August 8!

Endorphin rush experiment

July 4, 93: In a good mood before. Ran from 6:21 PM on. 3 choc bar day. At end of run felt like I can do anything, can definitely do the half, equanimous, euphoric. It’s okay if MV sells, or if it doesn’t sell. Maybe offer VF for free or lower price? It seems everything that might happen in life I can handle, and enjoy. Felt the green trees a lot, sensed a clean freshness in my chest. Quite a lot of energy (even though ran > 1 hr previous 2 days). When tired, used ChiRunning to feel a lightness (eyes ahead, back long, below waist loose, legs kicking up behind).

July 6, 68: At 21 minutes felt like I’d had a great day, even though I’d been irritated a lot of the day. At 27 minutes felt like I need to do this every day. Saw a wolf, I think. Had a half-dip in the river. Didn’t feel so cheerful when I had a bug in each eye and had probably swallowed more than I’d spit out. But ended feeling great, hill no problem, felt strong and alive. Thought some about work. Wondered about VF and if the guy will cancel & does that mean I should forget this type of work?

July 7, 60: Felt strong & fast. Worked 11 hours, then ran to bank to cash royalty cheque. Contract will be renewed for 6 more months! So felt very happy to begin with, and that lasted the whole run. A few moments of tiredness, but mostly fast & strong. I think running more these past few days increases the overall happiness. Plus sunny days last 2 days. And the blessings of Jupiter flowing as the new moon solar eclipse draws near. So endorphins there by about 12 minutes, and felt great. Still feel great!

July 8, 73: Weird day, didn’t flow exactly smoothly, but pretty good feeling/equanimity. Wanted to run longer (not turn back). No real high moments. Helped a cyclist who had run out of water. Gave water, reassurance, directions. He wanted to know he would be okay. Dip in the river again. I loved the green of the forest, and the cool. I felt glad to be there when someone needed help. Now I feel quiet.

July 10, 1:47: Felt strong in second half of the run. Loved the run, but no real highs on it. Amazing inquiry earlier in the day, and maybe feeling disjoint of regular life after that. Also eclipse looming. Had dip in the river. Loved the green of the trees and plants—felt I was absorbing the green like chlorophyll absorbs light, through my pores and eyes and heart. And running on the earth. It feels so healing, soothing, necessary. The green felt especially soothing. Pretty quiet now. Squirrel chatted with me by top tree.

July 11, 54:00: Somewhat tired and slow muscles this run, but loved being out in the forest, the green, the quiet. Asked for the second time for bugs to be protected from dying on me or flying into my eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. It worked again. Saw a swallow bug-catching along the river: look up swallow and squirrel. Reminded me of the medicine walk day when I saw the swallow. They are providing a fish egg-laying spot by there now; they’ve put branches across the path, gravel in the water, created a by-way with rocks. So no huge endorphin rush, but a definite quiet enjoyment and a feeling of irritation dropping away. After: pleasure, satisfaction at meeting my running goals for the week. Loving running 5 days a week again. It feels right.

July 13, 60:00: Ran at Jericho after private session with Carole. Felt very irritated. Way too many people. The sand wasn’t right so I had to run on the path. I felt tired and heavy a lot of the run. Endorphin rush made head tingle at 42 & 48 minutes. After I was glad I’d done it & kept my commitment to myself. Then wonderful inquiry.

July 14, 63:00: Very hard day, PMS probably, but teary, feeling no one cares about how I feel or what I want. My agent was attacking in a phone conversation. I cried a bit at work today. Also helped search for a missing boy and spoke to the man who works at the Lions building across the street (subsidized housing). So real mixed day, up and down, emotional. The run was so soothing, to be in the green forest and the cool. I cried on the run too. At about 43 min. felt the endorphin high—it felt so good to be running and I was sorry it was going to end soon. Stopped by a huge ancient tree on the path up, and greeted grandmother or grandfather, didn’t ask for anything specific but did ask for help and maybe holding. I could feel the giant presence around me. It was a pale green, the colour of the lichen. So overall I have to say it was a good run, healing. Afterward felt quite energized. Now 10PM and time for dinner.

July 15, 72:00: Had a great day, sorted out parking, on a high at work. Felt tons of energy while running, wanted to keep going. At 53 min. was sorry run was ending. At end still felt lots of energy, and altered state after as I walked it out. Only downside was mind very active much of the time. But felt strong & fast. Had a fun encounter with 2 cyclists. Saw a black vole run across the path!

July 17, 53:00: Great day, felt a lot of energy at first on the run (8:00 to the gate), loved soaking up the green again. Some time-watching, but at around 23 min. got into the groove. No problems with the distance.

July 18, 1:43:00: Felt quite tired in my legs for much of the run, didn’t eat enough good nutrition during the day. Also the hard training schedule catching up. But on the return half, gentle downhill, my energy picked up. No real euphoric moments while running. Did a ritual 12 minutes from the end, at my spot by the river. 10 minutes, greeted the 7 directions, buried the cheque from the faster who cancelled, (torn up) and planted the seed of guidance about how I am to help protect the earth. Thanked the 7 directions, and the run up the hill was quite easy. I was refreshed by the ritual and connecting with the directions. At the top of the hill in the parking lot, I heard a thrashing in the bushes. There was a reddish-brown body, and I thought it must be a dog, but then a beautiful little deer came out of the woods. She was a little timid, but not too afraid, and lifted her legs delicately as she walked across the parking lot. I spoke to her, thanking her, telling her I wouldn’t hurt her, honouring her preciousness. Deer can be a gentle beckoning to new adventure. It seemed this was the message from the spirits in response to my little ceremony. So a beautiful heartful ending to the run. I think it was this run that I thought about going to New York for my birthday.

July 20, 64:00: Great run, began feeling high at 17 minutes, and this continued throughout. Fell and got scrapes on hand, arm, right knee, but even this was not a downer. Loved the green. Went in the river. Explored a new spot. Felt all is right in the world. This continued after as well. Thought about asking Darch up for Saturday. Turned out he had emailed me earlier in the day about coming up to help!

July 23, 87:00: Ran with Darch at Monkey Valley. Lots of fun running together. Didn’t notice the euphoria but felt great to be out early in the morning running.

July 24, 42:00: Ran with the ChiRunning group. Angela, Darch, Lorinda, two others. It was great to see a group of people out running on these logging roads. Unfortunately I was much slower than them, so worried they would not know where to turn and didn’t like being last like that. Ashley twisted her ankle during the run. But loved the long up hill, the heat, having people to run with.

July 27, 62:00: Tired on run.

July 28, 80:00: Tired on run; began doing heel lifts, and the uphill cross-legged running.

July 29, 55:00: Pretty tired throughout run; did the heel lifts again; brought more lightness into the run.

July 30, 47:35: Very tired throughout run, very slow (morning run); I could feel the head tingling sometime after 40 minutes, but this endorphin release wasn’t strong enough to bring energy into my legs; there was a horrible vomit smell on part of the run, almost unbearable; ran to the bank and then along Wall, mood good in spite of tiredness; a little worry that it’s too much of a strain, I might injure myself, I won’t be able to keep up this training pace – basically, this week I was still exhausted from the ChiRunning & Yoga retreat, I still haven’t caught up on sleep, also hard to function well at work. This retreat took a major toll, though in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal.

July 31, 60:00: Wonderful run, spoke to mom on trail, green, energized, went 15 minutes past scheduled run. Very glad to be back on track and to have an energized run. Big challenge now is long run Sunday & 2 intense weeks of training.

4 Week Summary: Have completed first 4 weeks, doing minimum and usually more. First time ever that I’ve kept to the schedule so precisely. Very happy about this.

August 1, 1:52:00: The distance felt like no trouble at all. Found a trail at the end of the side road, and wanted to go farther to see where it went. Very slight twitch in left hip, tiredness at 1:20:00. But really the time was over before I knew it. No huge highs, but pleasant run, followed by dinner with Patricia at my house.

August 3, 67:30: Felt very tired on this run. Worried I won’t be able to complete the training, that I’ll be too tired, maybe get injured. So ran slow. Had a dip in the river. Very hard doing the uphill at the end.

August 4, 90:00: Great day, great run. Very energized internally, though my legs felt tired and slow at first. Wanted to stop thinking and just be, enjoy the beauty of the forest, and did quite a lot. On the uphill return two great grey owls visited with me for about 10 minutes. Silent flight, but noise hopping from a branch to a lower branch, and once or twice noise opening their wings. One time I looked at one and the other one flew away without me hearing a thing. But they seemed interested in me, flew to nearer branches, both looked at me. They also both flew at each other and dislocated the roosting one from a branch. It was such a wonderful gift!

Aug. 5, 67:00: My legs felt very tired during the run. This disappeared at about the half-way point. Dip in the river on the way back. I had a moment on the return of being without ego and feeling afraid, even as I felt excited to see how reality might appear without the ego veils. So it was scary but exhilarating, I wanted to continue this. On the trail up I had another encounter with the two owls. One hit me on the head, very forcefully. It hurt a lot and made me cry, especially because I had been honouring the owls, thanking them for their presence. It felt like a betrayal, and shook my view of reality, esp. of nature being kind and of me having a special relationship with the earth. I wrote about it in my blog. Read Medicine Card and Animal Speak. Deception being revealed? Angela thought new beginnings.

Aug. 7, cycled 55:00: First running equivalent. Went mountain biking with Darch. It’s very hard and scary!

Aug. 8, 2:01:00: Ran with Darch all around Merritt and along the two rivers. Pace a bit fast, beautiful to see new scenery. Fun to run with a friend. It sure helped to keep going the whole distance. Didn’t notice any marked endorphin rush. But after run felt great.

Conclusion about endorphin highs: They are not noticeable during every run, but are often there. They can start as early as 17 minutes, but usually don’t hit until about 40+ minutes. This could be because I have built up a certain level of fitness, so for newer runners, where the effort is strong, the endorphins might kick in sooner. For me I think it has always been that they kick in after a longer amount of activity. Quality of the day and my mood before the run sometimes affects the mood of the run too, but often the run turns around a cranky mood. Anyway, I’m glad I do it, whether its a good run or a bad run! Also noticeable in this experiment is how enriching running in nature is for me. Note this well, couch dwellers!

Photos by Joe Charron. Used with permission.

Part 2: Aggressive owl clouts runner on the head

Well, after my magical experience on Wednesday night, I was quite looking forward to my run Thursday night, hoping to see the great grey owls again. On the way down the trail, I didn’t see them, but I thought it was still too early. It wasn’t quite dusk yet. On the way back, sure enough, as I neared the same spot where I had seen the owls Wednesday night, suddenly an owl flew over my head, landing on a branch nearby.

I stopped, and bowed to the owl, thanking it for coming to visit me again. I opened my awareness to pure consciousness, wanting to sense the field of the owl and listen for anything it might be wanting to tell me. After a few moments, I heard a sound behind me. I turned to look, and the second owl was there, on a branch about the height of my head, only about six feet away. What a gift, to have the owls trust me and come so close!

When I turned back to look at the first owl, it was gone, but suddenly it swooped over my head again. I remembered stories about great grey owls that I’ve heard from friends recently, and recalled that they can be aggressive, even knocking peoples’ hats off their head. It occurred to me that maybe the owl was telling me to hit the road, that I was too close to the nest or something. I said this to the owls, that I would continue on my way, and turned to continue running up the path. Next thing I knew, one of the owls had struck me very forcefully on the top of my head. Ouch! What a shock! It was a forceful blow, quite amazing considering these owls only weigh about four pounds.

Okay, okay, I get the message, I’m leaving! I thought. I continued to run up the path, and one of the owls swooped very close to my head again, though it didn’t strike me this time. It continued swooping in loops alongside me a few more times, until I came to the same bend in the road as the previous night. There the two owls perched, and watched as I left their territory. I paused to say goodbye, voicing the fact that I didn’t much like being struck that way, but still appreciated their presence.

As I continued up the next bit of trail, the full impact of what had happened sunk in. I began to cry as I ran. My head hurt, but what hurt more was my heart. I had been so open to the presence of the birds, feeling like it was a gift. I thought I was special, and that the encounter was proof that I have some kind of special connection with nature. I have longed for closeness with wild creatures, and the night before it had seemed this was what was happening. And also it had seemed a clear answer to a question I was holding. In previous times, when people were closer to the land, the land and her creatures were ensouled with meaning, and such encounters had significance. I had sought this significance myself, but in feeling physically hurt, it seemed all of this was wiped away. I was just a fool on a run, blundering through an owl’s territory, unwelcome. All of this wounded my pride, my identity, shook up my view of reality.

Suddenly I had more sympathy for people who feel frightened of nature. Perhaps this is what was most upsetting about the encounter (and also the gift, to understand how others feel). I have always felt nature is a friendly place, or at worst neutral. But it’s a place I have felt safe, and have trusted. This encounter shook that trust. I don’t know yet the full impact on me. To be continued…