thirty-four days

October 22, a big day for me, I stood less than ten feet away from a red tail hawk. This was the closest I had ever been to a wild hawk. Right outside my house, the scraggly young male bird's eyes met mine in a gaze that lasted the length of time it took for him to finish eating the small rabbit lunch. I thought about the Medicine Cards that Jamie Sams did years ago, the hawk as the messenger and the rabbit as our fear. The symbolism penetrated my psyche and I started to run. Not a conscious choice, not a reaction, not a mapped-out decision that today I would start running, but the action of moving my legs faster than they have moved in a few years arose in a spontaneous moment. I missed day eighteen out of leg cramping, and day day twenty-seven out of an emotional upheaval that left me wrung out of options other than bed. Here I am at day thirty-four, and I continue to run. Though, I have picked up the pace, experienced a posture shift as I gained in strength, I continue to let the third dimensional distractions melt away through the bottoms of my feet, into the earth, grounding out the outdated, the outmoded, outside of me fear that no longer serves me and my time left on earth. I am accenting my ascent each time my foot, bound in new balance running shoes, touches down.