{"id":63715,"date":"2026-04-15T05:18:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T11:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63715"},"modified":"2026-04-15T05:20:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T11:20:23","slug":"63715","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63715","title":{"rendered":"Life Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spring and the Moon of Liberation<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday gratefuls: Rich. Tara. Marilyn. Jamie and Ellen. MVP. Melancholy, come to visit once again. BJ and Pammy. Idaho.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Sparks of Joy and Awe: Orion<\/p>\n<p>Tarot: paused<\/p>\n<p>One brief shining:\u00a0 Embodied. Incarnate. I am life itself, riding this body, the only one I&#8217;ll ever have, on the ancientrail from birth to death. No, I&#8217;m not special. You and you and you ride alongside me. Someday our paths will fork. I&#8217;ll go on my way. You on yours.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Over the last two and a half weeks I&#8217;ve felt as sick and unhappy as I have in years. I&#8217;ve begun to suspect that in addition to constipation and sleep deprivation I had a g.i. bug. I&#8217;m still not back. When I eat, my stomach often rebels. I&#8217;m sleeping much better, yet still feel worn out.\u00a0It&#8217;s important to me to write this. Get it on the page.<\/p>\n<p>As my physical distress increased, waned, and lingered, as it does now, I went on an emotional journey. Could this mean something dire? Why haven&#8217;t I taken better care of myself? Will I feel like this forever?<\/p>\n<p>Self-doubt. It wriggles up, carrying along with it other memories. Those weeks before and after my divorces. When I floundered, no longer at home in the ministry. Less dramatic. What have I done wrong with these vegetables? Why won&#8217;t Shadow come inside? Less dramatic, but still corrosive. Acid on the soul.<\/p>\n<p>Focusing on my difficult times, in these circumstances, only made my hard times harder. See. You are like that. Have been all along. Shifting, can you feel it, from a man who made mistakes to a man who is a mistake.<\/p>\n<p>How long can I endure? If I&#8217;m a man who is a mistake, not much longer. The pain and suffering will only recur and recur. Such a man can only bring down himself and those closest to him.<\/p>\n<p>If, on the other hand, I am a man who makes mistakes, I can learn, change. Try to make a different mistake. This man will not disappear. Today gives me a chance to alter my diet. To get better sleep. I can even learn to say, oh that was a mistake, how silly of me.<\/p>\n<p>There, you see? I&#8217;ve gotten this far down the page. Written myself into a happier place. The key today? I had begun to inch toward seeing myself as a man who is a mistake. One sabotages himself because that&#8217;s his nature.<\/p>\n<p>No. I&#8217;ve felt miserable and sick because I was miserable and sick. Not as a necessary condition of a permanently flawed man. I can get myself into a better place. How? Eat well. Move. And move some more. Workout how to handle the brace and eating out. Don&#8217;t isolate. Participate in the trial.<\/p>\n<p>In other words accept and assert my agency. Don&#8217;t let my inner world fill with self-doubt, recrimination. Fill it instead with self-regard, affirmation. Open myself to the wonder of being human.<\/p>\n<p>Quietly.<\/p>\n<p>Peacefully.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spring and the Moon of Liberation Tuesday gratefuls: Rich. Tara. Marilyn. Jamie and Ellen. MVP. Melancholy, come to visit once again. BJ and Pammy. Idaho. Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names. Sparks of Joy and Awe: Orion Tarot: paused One brief shining:\u00a0 Embodied. Incarnate. I am life itself, riding this body, the only one &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=63715\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Life Itself<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4394,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-phase","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63715"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63721,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63715\/revisions\/63721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}