Inspiration, Mythology, Aspiration

In the early days of my time living in Salida, CO (2014) my roommate showed me a story that Aubrey Marcus told on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast describing his revelations while in the grips of an Iboga trip (Iboga is a plant which contains ibogaine, which is in a class of chemicals known as psychedelics or entheogens.  These chemicals cause increased awareness, consciousness, and in higher doses can lead to full-on out-of-body visions).  Here is Aubrey's story (from https://www.aubreymarcus.com/blogs/aubrey-marcus/truth-in-ibogas-eden):

 I first saw the big bang… Near infinite planets and worlds exploding out from a single point and hurling into space. As they moved many of them would spark life, and that life would spark more life. But eventually the momentum would wane. The planets would reach their outer extremity and then slowly they would start to retract. Then the retraction would gain momentum, exactly converse in momentum to the explosion of the big bang, and like candles on the back of a fast moving car, life itself would extinguish. Faster and faster the planets would suck inward until they once again reached a single point. Then BOOM, another big bang. This was a heartbeat, and the heart itself was in the barrel-chest of a translucent blue Titan… And this titan was methodically running. The Titan was God, and the heart keeps pumping as long as he is running. That is the force behind life. God’s love is the commitment to never stop running. But just as this image was starting to sink in, I realized there were thousands of blue Titans, each with their own universe hearts, running around a track in a race that never ends. And then of course, there were thousands of tracks. That is the nature of infinity.

This reading immediately fascinated me.  In college I minored in religious studies, and have ever had a passion for reading & understanding the mythologies of different people & cultures which use archetypal symbols & characters to explain what we're doing here in this existence.  In Marcus' tale of The Blue Titan, there is a new idea of a god, and it includes the Big Bang as his heart and him being The Runner that pumps such heart!  Now I have literal visionary inspiration to run.  When I hit the trails in my red gym shorts along The Arkansas River & smile with endorphins as the hound Molly (my Salida running companion, who recently passed) takes turns galloping in front of or behind me, I imagine The Blue Titan - our Cosmos the heart - the more he runs & faster the more he keeps up against the other Titans!  In studying mythology, we accept that no one story tells a complete truth, but rather that a given myth is revealed to drive the people that need it in that time & place.  

Now here is a myth for us in these modern times.  A reminder to exercise - to move your heart & blood, that you to might be as The Blue Titan who keeps our very planets & stars in motion.  I think often of this myth each time I run.  It was the catalyst that got me really moving on the trails of The Arkansas River Valley, and pushed me to aspire to being more than the downtown drunk, more than the lost wanderer, more than the disenchanted suburban kid. 

Now I cannot be too lazy for too long. . . if I am, I will betray what I know to be God: the inter-cosmic running titan.  I am grateful to Aubrey Marcus for sharing this vision, and grateful to Joe Rogan for creating his podcast which is a platform for inspiring us to be the best we can be in the health of body & mind.  The population of this planet desperately need to receive new wisdom in a time that we can no longer depend on the old systems which no longer serve us.  

"I pump my legs to thee, O Kosmic Titan!"

On the wild steppes, history vanishes in the dust.  Only the mythmakers remain to say what was, and is, and will be.  from Magic: the Gathering card "Nomad Mythmaker."