Today Jenn and I ran the peachtree Road Race. 6.2 miles of pure bliss (with 60,000) other people. We have been working up to this for a while and although it was pretty tough, thankfully, it was not anywhere near as hard as I had imagined.

As we trained for the race we ran some courses that wound through woods and natural places, which made me think more about the current state of "modern" life. This excerpt from Ottmar Liebert's blog articulates it well.

Thoreau says “give me a wilderness no civilization can endure.” That’s not difficult to find. It is harder to imagine a civilization that wilderness can endure, yet this is just what we must try to do. Wildness is not just the “preservation of the world,” it is the world.

The Chinese spoke of the “four dignities” - Standing, Lying, Sitting, and Walking. They are “dignities” in that they are ways of being fully ourselves, at home in our bodies, in their fundamental modes. I think many of us wold consider it quite marvelous if we could set out on foot again, with a little inn or a clean camp available every ten or so miles and no threat from traffic, to travel across a large landscape - all of China, all of Europe. That’s the way to see the world: in our own bodies.

Imagine a world in which technology (roads, building etc.) are not imposed on the landscape but seamlessly integrated.