I had the most magical run yesterday! While it's possible I "just" had a runner's high, I've been running (a lot) for 20+ years now, and have never had an experience like this before. 5.5 miles in (halfway) and running uphill at a good place I couldn't stop smiling. I was lit up with excitement from the inside out, like I could and was flying. I felt connected to the trees, plants, birds, waters, people ... EVERYTHING, and like we were all joyously singing together. Isn't that wild?
A few hours removed from this extraordinary experience, as I got up from lunch my body gave me one of those "old guy" groans. My brain echoed the sentiment by saying, "I don't want to work, let's just lay down, relax, and read," to which my low back said, "AMEN!" I share this because these high and low points mirror something I'm increasingly finding to be true about us and important to see and accept: To be human is to have glory and shame, light and dark, kindness and meanness, success and failure, luminousness and shadow.
The more we see, name, and embrace ALL of these, the more whole, healthy, and well we become. Like much else, though, this is best done together because, to paraphrase Richard Rohr, both the burden of our screwups and weight of our awesomeness are too much to carry alone. I think the beautiful interplay of light and dark in this pic both poetically speaks to this and reminds us of a deeper Truth: While we HAVE both light/glory and dark/shame, we are NOT them, we are the harmonious, holistic, and contented observer!
#love #lovealone #onlylove #light #life #unity #harmony #connection #holistic #shadow #dark #glory #shame #bliss #yoga #kindness #luminous #whole #healthy #wellbeing #aweseomeness #togetherness #observer #awareness #upwardspiral #kitsaphotyoga #blissology #blissarmy