August 16, 2019

A Cross of Iron

Also Discovered on Today's Run

Ok runners and readers, this might not seem like a running topic, and it isn't. But I heard it spoken today during a run on Audible, and found it to be so incredible that I had to post it. If you have any concern about where this world is headed, I promise you this quote from a US president will awaken you...

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.  It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953)
34th President of the United States
Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces - WWII

August 11, 2019

Somewhere Out on the Pacific Crest Trail


San Jacinto (left), San Gorgonio (right) 
Nearly five hours into my run and approaching 9'000 feet at Onyx Peak outside of Big Bear Lake, I'm feeling the effects of altitude; dry mouth, light headed, energy levels fading.  I stumble after tripping over an invisible rock, but keep running and hiking, trying to move forward and a little higher.

At this moment it's just me, the road beneath me and the piercing sun over my head. 

I notice a shadow out of the corner of my eye. It's the shape of a hawk, but it isn't moving. I move closer, then look up. Above me was the silhouette of a large bird of prey, with an illuminated plume of feathers at the wing tips and tail. It appeared motionless as it floated in the sky, waiting. But for what?

I fumbled for my phone. But it was too late.

"The hawk symbolizes the ability to use intuition and higher vision in order to complete tasks or make important decisions. Animal guides can deliver important messages to us from beyond, and hawks definitely serve as animals that can heighten our spiritual awareness and help us along our paths." Power of Positivity