The major ethical advance of this century, according to Thomas Merton, has been the development of the ecological conscience. Ecology derives from the Greek word for “house.” Ecology is a study of the interrelationships within our environment, both internal and external. Basically, it is the matter of keeping our house in order. We have littered and polluted and dirtied our house over the past century; now we are trying to put it in order. The same ecological conscience applies to the house that is our body.
In raising our awareness toward what technology is doing to our environment, we ignore what technology is doing to our inner environment. The indifference and arrogance we have expressed toward our natural resources, we are still expressing by abusing our personal resources– psychological and spiritual.
George Sheehan in Chapter 4, On Sleeping,
in How To Feel Great 24 Hours A Day
Sheehan goes on to mention what former California Governor Jerry Brown says on the stewardship we have been given for the earth. Sheehan says that “we have the same responsibility to care for our bodies and our minds…” One way to do that is to listen to the circadian rhythms, to be lived, to “be acted out so that each of us gets the most out of the bodies we inhabit.” By the end of the chapter, he concludes that we need to listen to what our body clocks are telling us: the cliche “early to bed, early to rise…” again is here.
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This morning, while I made it up up at 5:30, by 8 a.m., I was back in bed, thanks to a debilitating allergy headache and not out on Sand Run Falls Trail as planned. My own circadian rhythm was thrown off with a couple of short naps throughout the day, thanks to headaches that just stopped me in my tracks, even with pain killers. However, tonight, when it looked light it might rain (although, of course, it didn’t), I went to the gym instead. Luckily, no conventions on the television sets (no one was there) and I was able to run about 20 minutes on each the treadmill and elliptical. I must have been doing something right, because I was covered in sweat.
Tomorrow: Day of rest, and then run around town on Friday, before long run on Saturday.
Title: Thoughts in Solitude