The Ten Commandments of Endurance

by Marshall Ulrich,
one of the greatest extreme athletes in the world.

• Expect a journey and a battle
• Focus on the present and set intermediate goals
• Don't dwell on the negative
• Transcend the physical
• Accept your fate
• Have confidence that you will succeed
• Know that there will be an end
• Suffering is okay
• Be kind to yourself
• Quitting is not an option

Strikes Two Woman

This small story, told by Pretty Shield, a famous Crow shaman, is about Strikes Two, a powerful woman shaman and warrior who rode out bravely against Lakota tribesmen who attacked her village. I want to be her!

I saw Strikes Two, a woman sixty years old, riding around camp on a gray horse. She carried only her root-digger, and she was singing her medicine song as though Lakota bullets and arrows were not flying around her.

Then I heard her say, "Now all of you sing: 'They are whipped. They are running away.' Keep singing these words until I come back."

When the men, and even the women, began to sing as Strikes Two told them, she rode straight out at the Lakota waving her root-digger, and singing that song. I saw her, I heard her, and my heart swelled, because she was a woman.

The Lakota, afraid of her medicine, turned and ran away. The fight was won, and by a woman.

~source: shirleytwofeathers

Morning Meditation - Life is to live in

Today found me visiting with a war party - just getting ready and heading out - a series of four pictures. I've talked to them before... This is what they said to me:

Yes, make your plans.
Yes, send out scouts.
Yes, dream on it.
Yes, smoke on it.
Yes, make your offerings.
Yes, make your peace.
And yes ride out, singing your death song, singing your power song, singing your war song.

Life is to live in, not to hide under.

~what's this?

To test life

To test life, to allow life itself to lead you and to care for you, is not a parlor game. In order to move into your way, you may have to put everything on the line.

~Rick Jarow