Nothing stamps out the urge to be creative like an assignment on creativity.
True.Story.
It's like snuffing a candle.
"Go do something creative," our professor told us in her rich southern drawl. "Find a way to connect to your inner self, and relate that creative drive to your spirituality. And do something that is not for school".
Irony, of course, if I'm doing something creative to meet an academic requirement, doesn't that, by design, make this a school "thing"? just another example of Nursing School Semantics - I'm sure of it.
In fact, I believe that this blog post fills the requirements to the assignment.
Or, if not this, perhaps the 10 mile run I did this weekend will count.
I consider myself a spiritual person. I connect to my spirituality every week for 14 - 20 miles, depending on my schedule. To me, there is nothing more spiritual than my run. I imagine it's this way to other runners as well, and cyclists find it on their ride, and rowers in a skull, and boxers in a ring, and so on and so forth.
My run is my friend, drug, companion, enemy, challenger, supporter, lover, therapist, and maybe, just maybe, my channel to the divine. The nice thing about my run is that it doesn't mind being all these things. On occasion, it rises up and finds a new role I haven't even thought up.
Running requires that I put my thoughts to the side and let my body be in charge. It demands that I release myself from the constraints of day to day life, and let my feet, heart, breath, and desires all work together in tandem.
There are days when a marathon and all the training that goes with it seems impossible. My head will tell me that 26.2 miles will hurt. Doubt will question if it is too hard. Logic will remind me that the training is risky and injuries are possible.... and if I can quiet all that interference, my feet will tell me to go for a run.
As the miles click off, I get lost in the sensation as the fall air kisses my cheeks. The crickets sing to complement the drum of my shoes, and the voices in my head will grow weary of the competition and become very quiet.
In that blessed silence, I find my center. I regain the balance I need. I connect to me.
And really, is there anything more spiritual than that?
~savor the run~
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