The Journey of Life
11,000 of us chose to meet on New Year’s Eve in Barcelona to go for a run together… Quite a thing, a huge group of people running around the streets of Barcelona as the sun set on 2015.
As humans we appear to like meeting in groups to do things together…
Queuing to do things, eating together, dancing together, shopping together…
We seem to function best in families and communities…
And the safer we become within ourselves, the more that we fully know nothing is permanent, that we are living comfortably with this truth, at ease with the fact that nothing is certain, then it becomes easier to recognise that the whole globe is a community….
That we are a big family of humans experiencing this life, we are united…
We all sleep, eat, breathe, cry, laugh and love…
The running race is a wonderfully simple yet complex metaphor for life…
We are born, we journey together, we finish the race of life, that never ends…
There is no finish line…
Ironically many live as if they were not going to die, but still live in tension and fear…. The unexplored fear of death at the core…
And then the paradox, with exploration comes the understanding that there is no death, we do not go anywhere, there is nowhere to go.
And so running through the streets of Barcelona with 11,000 others, there was only the sound of padding feet, breathing; and an inner silence….
If we are able to learn how to remain silent during this journey, this race from birth to death; then we will find that we can truly live without fear, staying in the step we are in…
The race around Barcelona was a joyous celebration of community, all sharing the road, but everyone running their own race, side by side…
Living could be as simple as breathing in and out, staying silent and watching what emerges….
But it is as complex as each person working out, or living out whatever their energetic make up leads them towards…
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.
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