in beauty may we all be.

Finally going to run again tomorrow and I absolutely cannot wait.

I'm half crazed from inactivity and the news of another funeral to attend later in the day on Wednesday.  I desperately need a reminder of the joy of movement before standing beside another coffin, turning from it to look into eyes so filled with loss that they're otherwise empty and knowing that I simply do not possess words to make any single thing any bit better.  I've stood in that spot too many times waiting on inspiration that never ever arrives.

And fresh on my mind, as I think of life, of death and of running, is the news of a visionary falling in the dry deserts of New Mexico this past weekend, leaving the trail running community stunned, as though life goes on endlessly for some but not others.

Nope.

Death comes for all of us, even Caballo Blanco, and the real race, as far as I'm concerned, is celebrating the beauty of life between now and then.  I feel certain that Caballo, if not early in life then eventually, understood that fully and left us having better run that race than most.

While seeking his voice on YouTube, my ears were rewarded with the words of a Navajo chant that seems all too fitting under the circumstances:

Beauty before me as I run.  Beauty behind me as I run.  Beauty below me as I run.  Beauty above me as I run.  Beauty beside me as I run.  Beauty within me as I run.  I see beauty all around.  In beauty may we walk.  In beauty may we see.  In beauty may we all be.