Shadows and Sprinklers.

As the run continued throughout the night I was happy to note that no animals visited me. My hyper vigil nervous system was spooked by 2 things consistently. The first being my own shadow. I was always surprised and then laughed at how my own shadow would dare to sneak up and frighten me. This was most annoying indeed. Yet I dare not ignore him, because what if it was an actual person set about to wish me harm, my mind reminded me repeatedly.

There was one person I met at around 10pm, walking by himself. I kept checking to make sure he went as far away from me as I could see. I never saw him again. Perhaps a fellow traveler searching for his soul as well. There was this other random dude in a car at 3am who drove passed me with his window down and wished me “good morning” and took off down some other street, also to never be seen again.

The second was the various landscaping sprinkler systems that turned on at midnight, 1,2,3,4,5 am. Different houses, different times, but having run enough over the next 27 ish hours I could tell you with decent accuracy who waters their lawns and at what times. The hissing of the sprinklers jetting out their water spouts made me jump on more than a dozen occasions.Thinking it was an animal my caveman instincts came online watching out for predators. Pareidolia was definitely what I was experiencing. My “spidey sense” kicked in on more than a few occasions. Yet as the night progressed despite the now apparent “ I should be asleep “ sensation started to play up, I began to find the calm within the storm of the nervous system. More grounded. Spiritually aware yet grounded in the walk/run, more walk.

Yet a new contemplation arose and I began to wonder how often do we make stuff about other people and events that are not even occurring but our mind fabricates all sorts of nonsense and suspicious thoughts depending on our preconceived notions and beliefs. Like the shadows and the “dangerous hissing” sprinklers, nothing is real. It is just a thought. A figment of the imagination. Transient. When we pay no attention to it, than we do an ant, it holds no authority or power over us. When we detach ourselves from the attachment of thought we realize the freedom. Letting go is key to our happiness and peace. The magic lies at the center between our rage and our serenity.

Thoughts are not real or tangible. They are ideas, possibilities. Imagine that there is a forest, and the path lies between the trees, yet any number of combinations of paths can exist between the trees. The thoughts are the trees. All possible thoughts already exist, and it is our choice which ones we pick and hold on to or which ones we ignore. Which ones we use as a guide to our intended path and which ones we castaway. We walk through the forest of thoughts in each moment, making some our own and rejecting others.

So like these thoughts, the shadows and sprinklers became the illusion for me to either choose to ignore or in some instances I reacted instead of responded.

It is always a choice. We control our nervous system. If we do not then we are constantly in the mode of fear. When we embrace the darkness around we find the darkness within, and that is the path to the light, through awareness and seeing the choice of action or inaction.

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I love you