Achilles Healing

Writing is an unnatural act. I've been doing it professionally for some twenty-six years, and I still have a hard time facing a blank page, or worse, a blank box on a blog. Too many thoughts scurrying around to focus on any one of them. And no copy editors to clean up the mess. Nevertheless, the Titanic sails again...

About two weeks ago, after spending the weekend handing out magazines at the San Franscisco Green Festival, I drove back to Oregon and returned my rental car. (My pick-up gets ridiculously bad milage but I can't live without it yet, so I rent high milage cars for long drives.) Anyway, I was walking back to my truck when, ouch!. I couldn't walk anymore. Something in the back of my heel suddenly made its presence known in a remarkably painful way.

And part of me was relieved. I couldn't walk and therefore I couldn't train anymore. The silly quest for the Olympics was over, and it wasn't my fault. I hadn't done anything stupid. I hadn't done anything at all. But my body had decided to quit. Thank God!

But it was also puzzling. If your achilles tendon is torn, it is supposed to feel as if you have been hit by a bat. Then the tendon rolls up like a window shade -- and you are finished...at least for six months or so. But there was no whack at the back of my heel. Just excruciating pain.

Ah, the micro tear, it turned out. Just a reminder that life- altering pain is just a step away. The good thing about training is that it keeps the body in healing mode, so I was able to be back in the boat in a couple of days and pain free within a week (with help from a chiropractor and an osteopath...)

So what is the lesson in all this? For me it is being reminded what a blessing it is to be able to be embarked on an adventure. Heck, life is an adventure. It is so easy to forget that... Thankfully, the reminder can be only a random step away.

Back in Business

For the last few weeks we've been working nonstop to get our November issue to press. We missed our summer issues for a lack of funds, but we're now back with a new and sustainable business plan. we are extremely grateful to all of you for your support.

The only good news about being unable to publish is that I had more time to train. At the end of August we went to Canada for the Canadian Masters Nationals and won five gold medals in five races. In a few weeks we'll be off to Boston for for a race called The Head of the Charles and the chance to do some physiological testing with Fritz Hagerman. Fritz has been testing rowers since 1972 and has my data from 1980. It will be really interesting to see how well we do.

I'll be writing more frequently now that I'm not so embarrassed about not being able to publish the magazine. What a relief it is to be back at work. There is one thing I did notice on Sunday that I would like to share. I've been doing a little coaching a novice women's crew. They look pretty rough -- like a novice crew -- but on Sunday we put four of the women in an an eight-oared shell with four of our best male rowers. The four of us men were able to set a rthythm that the women could flow with -- and flow they did. They let go of themselves and the boat felt really marvelous. A couple hours later I went to join our local ecstatic dance group. My elbow was hurting and had been for a week. Probably tendonitus. At the dance I thought of our last issue about shaking medicine. I let my arms vibrate with the music, letting go into the rhythm, turning off my mind. After a couple of hours of dancing I was soaked in sweat and my back hurt, but my elbow was fine. the tendonitus was and is all but gone.

The theme keep repeating itself -- letting go into a larger power whether rowing or dancing or living. It's marvelous and healing. More later...

And the Winner Is...

We're still getting emails about The Secret. Nothing we've written about in ten years of publishing has come close to the reponse. It's been hard to get off my mind...even when had other things to think about like trying to win rowing races at the Master Northwest Regional Championship.

We did win some. Our men's eight from Ashland Rowing Club won a gold medal in a Regional Championship for the first time in our history. Given that our population base is about 25,000 and we were competing against clubs from places like Portland, Seattle, and Marin County, our victory was remarkable. To have eight men rowing as one,you need a lot of infrastructure: good coaching, good boats, lots of time together, a common goal, and a great dream. I think that training in the pair for the the Olympic trials has helped with the great dream. I think our goal has helped raise the bar for everyone so that our small club could win against much larger organizations. That felt good.

The races in our pair were less satifying. Even with some lousy steering on my part, we easily won our age group. But against the thirty-somethings, we were second. That's pretty discouraging with only eight months till the Olympic trials. Is the quest worthwhile if we probably can't win?

I guess what makes this a great quest is that I don't really doubt the answer. Yes. It is worth doing for it's own sake. And maybe that a good test for The Secret. What if you pour all your consciousness into attracting what you want and the "genie of the universe" doesn't bring it to you? If that is goinng to be disillusioning and/or devastating, then maybe it the wrong thing to attempt to attract? I still believe the "genie of the universe" (whatever that is) is primarily asking us to be curious, to listen and figure out how our own stories and strivings can inspire and empower others.

Off to the Races

Tomorrow, my rowing partner, Andy Baxter, and I will drive to Vancouver, Washington for the Northwest Master's Regional Championships for rowing. We're working stepwise toward next year's US Olympic trials. We'll be racing our pair in the masters 30-something-year-old "B" division, even though we are well into the "C" division. Perhaps if we had more guts, we would already be racing in the open division against current US team rowers. But dreams are delicate. They take time.

But what if we don't win in the B division? How could we race for the US team next year if we can't even beat the relatively old folks? Will the entire endeavor become laughable?

When I was training so many years ago for the 1980 Olympics, all that mattered to me was making the team. The late David Halberstam, who wrote about Olympic rowing in The Amateurs quoted the mother of one of my old teammates, who described us as "such beautiful young killers." In my own book, The Shell Game, I described my relationship with my teammates as "friendships between duelists." The good, the bad, and the ugly all come out when one is pushing the limits. I remember one race in 1979, where I secured my seat for the World Championships by working to crash my boat into the opposition.

All these years later, I am surprised at how much I still want to win. I should have no illusions about having "tamed my shadow." What I have learned is that pushing my limits can put my shadow right in front of me. I get glimpses of all of myself -- including the parts that I don't want to see.

For example, right now I am frightened of humiliation. Back in 1980 I would have buried it. Now I let myself feel it...and then it goes...and I feel lighter. Each of us is on his or her own quest. As the saying goes, the only real question is whether the quest has heart.

Wish us luck!
And check out our video link on youtube.

More Thoughts on The Secret

Our May issue is just hitting the newsstands, and already my inbox is full of emails about Rabbi Rami's piece on The Secret. The Rabbi thought The Secret was snake oil and worse. I don't go that far, but my stomach hurt watching the dvd, and that's part of my problem with it. My stomach is generally a lot smarter than I am. There are all kinds of things that I keep doing even as my stomach says "no!" but my head is now smart enough to at least register the cost. Unfortunately, the Secret doesn't count gut feelings. It doesn't count the heart. The Secret is all head-- this thing we vaguely call consciousness, tugging at the universe, telling God what we want so that She can bring it to us. Maybe, but I really don't think so. I believe we are all somehow connected. I believe my thoughts matter. I believe that the stories I weave for myself are very powerful. By immersing myself in grand stories I have at time been able to do grand things. But I have also learned that the grand things I have been able to do came not from the power of me, but the power of the story. To make the Olympic team, one needs an enormous amount of help. The secret of making large dream come true is choosing a deam that attracts others who want to step in and help when the burden for one person is simply too great. Believing that we are the creators of our own reality seems pretty crazy to me and frankly too much of a burden. My thoughts can't save the world. My thoughts won't even fill my stomach when I'm hungry. We are physical beings, and our conscious thoughts are only a fraction of who and what we are. That said, the stories we weave together probably can save the world and certainly can provide really tasty things to eat along the way. I'm blithering... More later....