The Imogene '10 Chronicles, Part One: ilg cranks toward a top 15 AG!

note: this is first in a series of chi hits centering upon my performance at the grand-daddy of North American Mountain Running Races and one of WF's Most Sacred Pilgrimages: the Imogene Pass Run where ilg was once a top-20 Overall finisher who now just tries to summit near the same time that i once did the whole race in!

click photos to enlarge your aspiration chi hit!

in one of those stunning synchronicities of life, my daughter's birthday falls on the same date as perhaps my most Sacred of all Southwest Sport Pilgrimages; the Imogene Pass Run. here we are, Dewachen and i on Race Day Morning at the fantastic Hot Springs Inn in Ouray, Colorado mOMents before the Start Gun (and yes, here in the wild west it IS a real gun!). what would ensue? 17 of the Highest Miles of a Sacred Worship any Human Being could ever Pray to have...

most of all however, HAPPY CONTINUATION to my Dewachen who turned 3 on 9/11/10...and THANK YOU to all of your worldwide wishes for Dewa's Birthday and my i-forget-how-many-Imogenes-i've-done well wishes! Thanks to ALL of you for your Mantra sends, and your Devotion toward Wholistic Fitness®...ilg and my students pretty much kicked ass across the board...just wait till you hear what i've got to report but DON'T WAIT to sign up and check this amazing WF Pilgrimage off your Life List! (Registration opens on June 1st and pretty much sells out their 1,500 spots within 24 hours.)

Most of all, however, ilg just wants to put out to the UniVerse (OnePoem) how absolutely HONORED both Ananda and feeble ilg are to be given the Gift of an Incarnation to be the Parents of our now 3 year-old Rinpoche, Dewachen.

To Dewa;
Sweetheart, my Precious Absolute of It All...to Be with you these past 3 years (really, four counting your still-in-your-Amma's-tummy time) has been not only the steeeeeeeepest,
most exhauuuuuusting,
and
most EXHIILAAAAAAARATING
time of my life,
it's also
been the
most
Forceful (Hatha)
Union (Yoga)
of
my
Blessed,
yet
Difficult
incarnation.

so,
thank you...my Kamalikka (Little Lotus),
for you
are making
ilg - the founder of Wholistic Fitness -
far more Whole
than ilg could ever
have imagined
without thee.


and to your astonishingly Conscious M(om)?

all feeble ilg can do is
bow
as low
and as deep
as my post-Imogene Pass Run hips
can allow.

and THAT,
my Friends Along The Path
is what
it's all about...

my Race Report with Special Endorsements coming up soon...

hang tough,
breathe soft..

your not-so-feeble mountain yogi

photos:
1) 7:40...Dewa and Daddy 20 minutes before another Imogene Start....photo by Ananda
2) Birthday girl Dewa and Georgey (Curious George...who also happened to be my deepest Guide during my earliest years) on the evening before her 3rd birthday. photo by ilg.
3) my Little Lotus in the Bardo Tunnel at the Ouray Hot Springs Pool.
4) the ilg clan, chilling at the Ouray Hot Springs Pool post Imogene Pass Race, 2010.

HP Yogi JVS...and his final Hum Saah! before IPR!

HP Yogi JVS; he's on the MAP Aminos, he's been flawless in consistently taking my HP Yoga classes at The Hub...he's lost bucketloads of weight, and this Saturday, he toes the Start Line of one of America's most intensely sacred mountain yogic pilgrimages available to any yogi worthy of the name; the Imogene Pass Run. He writes me tonight...

***

Mother Hen Ilg,
Resting comfortably in my recovery compression tights tonight. I'm glad I went to HP PROP tonight, it was my final "hum saah" before IPR.

My summer training has been an amazing adventure. Thank you for all of your support and guidance to get me to the start line this Saturday. I'll keep the Sunrider herb system in mind as an option for my well being.

See you in Ouray.

as you instructed, I will "run with love."

Mighty Nervous Mountain Yogi

JVS

photo by ilg; Mountain Yogi JVS getting it done weeks ago on the famed, Jones Creek Trail; early prep for IPR.

Listening To September

us Wholistic Fitness® yogis are easy to spot in September; we can't resist crankin' a Crane Posture on a sun-baked rock while out running...photo of ilg by Ananda during yesterday's Wholistic Strollercise® with my girls.

It’s early September...a blissful 30 day crush of utter perfection
when the sattvic wave of summer begins to shrivel like forlorn leather. Leaves turn. Bow hunters creep the high country. Seasonal urgency begins to express itself in myriad and ever changing ways; arm warmers on the Club Rides, night lights on the commuter bicycles, and the gentle shock of wet coldness as i trod barefoot through the grass, fetching the morning newspaper. Calli Tea feels really, really appropriate now.

I know its early September when Grandfather Sun makes His grand entrance over Missionary instead of Raider Ridge as He begins His glorious arc. The Native yogis of our land - Turtle Island - lived by solar and lunar expression. It's what Hatha Yoga means: Ha = Sun, Tha - Moon, Yoga = Union. A human life is orchestrated by the Dance of Sun and Moon. At least we used to. We should now. That is Yoga. Go backpacking for several days during September; you'll understand more about Hatha Yoga than any Nag Champa incensed studio or hot yoga teacher could ever pray to impart.

Dewachen in traditional yogi garb (butt ass naked) checks out a Smooth Green Snake (Opheodrys vernalis) yesterday on the banks of the Sacred Animas beside the WF Temple H(om)e. photo by ilg...click to enlarge.

In September
the Sacred Animas floats a sexy mist above her dwindling volume. The mist - anciently born - dances before my riparian home like bardo smoke sucking the Ancient Ones from etheral slumber. Indeed, these morning mists and the humidity they deliver are a sanctified Blessing apart from the Sage which perfumes these rocky heights.

In September,
i find myself restraining a deeply rooted nostalgia for each Kale pulled, every Tomato plucked. Such backyard harvest need not a bar code to determine its due date but telegraph their maturity by a sheer and natural appearance to those Who Listen. In each garden lies a zendo waiting for the temple gong of nurturing.

September is
the precious month where every sentient being grows in some unsullied way.
Seedy plants and bundled up morning cold
snaps all of us up here from summer's sweet stickiness.
Time to get the wood for winter.
Get the fenders on the commuter bikes.
Place the ski wax orders, now.

After thirty-eight summers at 6,512' or more above sea-level, let feeble ilg tell you, when September arrives; you listen.

You listen
to the ultra sweet sounds of morning as you pour the locally made "Southwest Blend" into the bird feeders. Within moments Grosbeaks, Kinglets, Phoebes, and Finches dance their privately known hierarchy among the Siberian Elm branches. And what a dance is it is! Durango sees 310 wild birds as seasonal or yearly residents. The entire state of Minnesota only fetches 312 by comparison. Careful, though, on the birdseed, i reMind myself each treasured morning...birdseed attracts Bears which have found my yard to be a Preferred Pooping Place. Might be the Black Walnut tree. Regardless, too much birdseed and the Bears will raid like Norwegians the feeders, then the trash, and then - like the woman up the valley - your very own kitchen.

What else does ilg listen to during these jeweled days of September?

ilg listens
to the soundless sound of a Smooth Green Snake slivering her slow way from the 40-degree night into the wall of early morning light along the banks of the Mother Animas.

ilg listens to every morsel of sunshine bouncing off the Gamble Oak and Juniper and even the Driftwood, floating....floating. i centered my entire Shavasana meditation tonight to my yoga students based upon Driftwood floating upon the Mother Animas.

By sheer Listening?

Listening, my friend along the Path, turns to love unadulterated by societal convention.

Listening transforms.
Listening invites Insight.
Insight welcomes Empowerment.
Empowerment = Enlightenment.
so,
as the only two words to the Wholistic Fitness® bible states:
"Just Listen."

And especially; coach ilg wants thee to listen to September as humble gardens everywhere spew out incomprehensible amounts of food that Yogi Jesus would applaud. IT'S A MIRACLE!

To eat local in the ilg h(om)e?

Step outside and just say, "Please, Garden."

We've got seven weeks until the first hard freeze.

Maybe six.

Those of you that have been following ilg's tracks all these decades know that Autumn tis my most powerful time of year; tis the season of Imogene Pass Race (coming up in 3 days, 20 hours!!!), of roller skiing, and my love affair with falling leaves upon frozen singletrack way up high.

In this elegy
for another awesome summer,
ilg bows to you.
and to Yours.
Endlessly i bow along this head-shaking miracle of existence upon this absolutely implausible plane(t).

that is all.

go out and breathe
September pran.


yogi ilg