Power Running
by Jeffrey Pierce

Monday night, I bit into some food that was scalding hot and ended up with a massive second degree burn over 25% of my mouth, the burn covering the entire left half of my lower lip. Using a combination of fluid reality, shamanic healing, energy work, and a homemade herbal salve (aloe gel and lavender essential oil), the burn hasn't only healed, but the blisters indicative of a second degree burn have almost completely disappeared.

The next time I do something ludicrous and injure myself in the process, I need to remember to photograph the damage. If you could have seen my completely grey (from the massive blistering) half of a bottom lip on Monday night and then seen it again, less than thirty-six hours later, almost completely healed... well... it's hard to medically explain, that's for sure. In fact, it's healing so quickly that Bri actually asked me if I'd pulled blistered skin off of my lip after we got out of the shower this morning as more of the damage from the burn had already been healed and reabsorbed into healthy tissue in the minutes between showering and getting dressed.

That wasn't the only "impossible" thing that's happened today.

About a mile into my run this morning, the batteries in my MP3 player ran out of power. I have an absolutely ancient MP3 player that I run with. It's circular in shape and roughly the size of a tangerine. I'm not sure what more modern players do, but When I replace the batteries in my ancient beast, it automatically resets to the first song on the playlist.

I do not run well without music. Music empowers me, moves me, and is much of my inspiration for both working out and running. My MP3 player dying one mile into my run qualifies as a minor running emergency in my world.

I've come to embrace the concept that we are never confronted by a problem without the solution to that problem ready at hand. So I briefly considered entering a running meditation without the music to carry me through my run, but that seemed like passive acceptance to me. Instead, I held the MP3 player in my hand as I ran through the dark and visualized its battery meter reading a little over half full.

I pushed the power button.

Nothing happened.

So I visualized the power meter again. But this time I visualized was standing in my bedroom before my run, checking the battery indicator to see how much power was left. (I got dressed in the dark this morning, so this was pure visualization and could not have happened in static reality). This was my visualization and I believed it to be true.

I pushed the power button again.

And the first song on the playlist, not the track I was listening to, but the song that's queued up when I replace the batteries, began to play.

my MP3 player - and the battery is still half full after having recharged it mid-run

And after running another four miles to finish out my five mile run for the morning, my MP3 player was still going strong.

Thoughts? Comments? You can contact us at connect@oldways.com or interact with Jeffrey, Briana, and the Old Ways community on our Facebook page.

Originally published in Old Ways on January 6, 2010