The Grass Beneath Our Bare Feet…
An alarm at 4.40am did feel a little early… But Anadi and I are used to quite regular ‘mad o clock’ get ups, and it is also fun… We stepped out quietly into the night, no sign of the dawn… But as we drove, it started to streak its way across the sky in grey and yellow brush strokes…
After dropping off our hire car, we were on the little transfer train from the South to the North terminal and my feet made another new friend… They are often doing this!
I have always enjoyed conversation as I journey; but my feet, now free and unshod, have a life of their own and make friends wherever we go…
So at 5.30am this morning they made friends with a man from New Zealand… 
He was watching me while I was trying to make my sparkly bejewelled barefoot sandals stop sliding about… He leaned forward to show me how I could make them fit a bit better… I commented on how cold it was today, and he said that he had only started to wear shoes in the UK because of the climate. He lamented that they had become soft, and told me how he used to be able to run across stones without it hurting – that he was barefoot all the time… ‘People don’t know the feeling of freedom without shoes…’ he finished, as we all spilled out of the shuttle, and disappeared into the throng of travellers…
It reminds me of the time when I was little and on my way to nursery school… I was about four or maybe five years old, and we were making our way across the village… My mother was bumping my little sister Rosy in the pushchair along the stony lane where we lived… `I had dressed myself in my favourite red skirt, and I was skipping along beside them with my skirt flying up and down as I went, when suddenly my mother exclaimed…’Darling, you’ve forgotten to put your pants on…!’
Yesterday…
I woke for my last ‘first thing’ run in the country lanes of Buxted as we were leaving so early today… The sky was already bursting with bright beams of sunshine; light sparkled on the cold dewy grass… I set off at what felt a quite civilised 6.30am… It seems that there have been more acorns each time I run here…! It was crisp cold too, I could see my breath and was once again glad to have socks on my tootsies….
I did however fling them off when I returned after a five mile spin, to run naked footed on the lawn… A glorious grass bath for my feet to finish… Such joy… Such a simple act, to stand on the morning grass without shoes on and to feel no separation.
To experience no separation…
Understanding the concept that we are one, is a step towards an experience of being one… Whenever we experience total connection, whether that is with the grass, the sky, the sea, a baby, a lover, a friend, a sunset, a delicious meal – the first sip of coffee, or a cream tea… A business deal working, a race going well, or an early morning run… Sitting in the sun, singing at the top of our voices or hearing music, and feeling it traverse through our body connecting us with the divine… When we experience being one, then we know that the experience isn’t to do with the thing ‘out there’, it is because we are remembering that we are the sunset, the moon, the stars, the business transaction, the food we are eating, the other… We are not separate…
We are separated when we react or judge or feel attached to, or that we need the experience of the other to make us whole… Then we immediately cut ourselves off from love, from truth, from wholeness.
And so all that we must do is notice when we react or judge, or deem another less than or more than.. Or ourselves less than or more than…. And keep coming back to our centre – enjoying being the rising sun and the falling rain… The ocean and the grass beneath our bare feet…
I have been running all of my life – it feels I was born to run. In the running step I experienced freedom and my true expression. I came to see that I needed to ‘get out of the way of myself’ and let my energy flow through the running step; allow it to express itself in the dance and the motion of running. I ran for England and GB for some years. My first international was in 1979, a three mile cross country race; and I continued to run at international level until 1993. Two of my best results were first place in the Dublin City Marathon in 1985 and 7th place woman, 3rd British woman in the 1986 London Marathon in a time of 2.36.31, which gained me selection for the Commonwealth Games.
As a little girl I ran barefoot for many years, and then I put on shoes to race around the world. Fifty years later I am travelling the world as a nomad with my husband Anadi and I have taken off my shoes and I am running barefoot again….
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