I am a collector of the metal arcane. I have a curious mind that likes shiny objects. My brain is a jumbled place of old odd things like a deranged estate sale or the attic of a well used Victorian house.
I amazed one of my colleagues this week by telling her the story of the Bronze Age Caucasian mummies that they discovered in Western China.
She didn’t believe me. But, these days, I have Google to back me up. The man they discovered was 6 foot 6 with a ginger beard. The women were redheads. They were living in Western China 3-4,000 years ago presumably along some trade route.The Chinese didn’t want to believe that there were red-haired mummies buried in their desert on the wrong side of the mountains and tried to explain it as a trick of the weathering and aging process. But, these days, you can’t escape DNA and they were proven to be Celtic tribe closely related to the Scotts.
The Celts had a thriving Bronze Age warrior civilization that spanned Europe. They didn’t write much down and their culture was trampled by an ascendant Rome so we don’t know as much about them as we should.
Here’s another Google moment for you. Search for a picture of the Roman statue called “The Dying Gaul”. It shows the Celts as the Romans knew them; tall, athletic warriors who ran naked into battle. Which, in hindsight, was probably not the best tactic to use against the legionaries.
Like most Americans I’m a racial mutt, but I like to think I’ve got Celtic genes from these great mystic warriors.
Bringing this circuitous discussion all the way back to endurance sports – the Celts had a concept of ‘thin places”. Thin places were physical locations or mental states where the physical world was close to the metaphysical world.
Thin places were where the residents of one plane of existence could communicate with those from others. Where you could converse with your dead ancestors. Where you could see things beyond the physical. Think along the lines of; “I saw God” or “My life flashed before my eyes.”
I think late in a long race is a thin place where we move beyond the physical and rub up against the unknown. I think this is why we put ourselves in these states of exhaustion and deprivation. Like a fasting monk we push the physical out of the way so that we can commune with something beyond this place. We are rubbing thin the skin between life and infinity.
I listened to a podcast this week where the author wrote a piece on how running, by any standard definition is a religion. I’d go further than that. I’d say endurance sport is a spiritual endeavor. When you get to a certain point it ceases to be a physical act and becomes a metaphysical act.
Don’t be afraid to take it to the edge my friends, because when you get there you’ll find me with my feet dangled over the edge grinning like a madman into the abyss.
Cheers,