Thanks to the St. Louis Ultrarunners Group and the St. Louis Track Club for greeting their brother and sister Harmony Runners!

Circus, Gateway Arch and Harmony around St. Louis

Dear Reader,

If you are still following the stories from the World Harmony Run, USA, here is another one you may enjoy. Sometimes, before running 8 miles and having three ceremonies in a day, you wonder, ‘Oh God will there be anything thrilling today?” But I can assure you, as soon as you open your eyes the new born reality is ahead with all its fragrance and beauty awaiting you.

Today I didn’t expect that I will see a whole school bus on a top of a building and I will walk on a big yellow ball in a circus hall. And if someone had told me that I am going to change my ordinary white shoe laces with pink and green ones, I wouldn’t believe him…but today it happened.

Our hotel this time was a very special place. Situated near St. Louis in Belleville, Illinois, it is part of the largest outdoor Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in North America, founded in 1958 by Fr. Edwin J. Guild. Devoted to Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Snows is tied to a legend about a marvelous snowfall on a hot, sultry day on August 5 in Rome in 352 A.D.

Jim Will and Carol Lawrence who work for the Shrine in the Marketing and Guest Services Divisions, greeted us in the morning of our first day off to take some photos with us and to meet all the runners of our International Team.

We did a short run to the Gateway Arch, a Thomas Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on the way to downtown St. Louis. We climbed big stairs under the shadow of the huge arch with Thomas Jefferson Memorial in the distance. Here a group of Fransiscan nuns shook hands with us and immediately filled our Polish runner—Michal—with great respect and joy. This was the place where two of our runners, Salil and Erik had to leave us, opening places for new colors in the team, Goran and Morris, who arrived later that day. Atulya also sadly had to leave us earlier today.

At 3:00 the same afternoon, I had the feeling that a long forgotten child dream was coming true with a straightforward name, City Museum. It was a weird place. “…you feel like you are looking in someone’s head.”—quote by Homagni.

Inside was a décor of obelisks, stone dragon sculptures and walls covered with sea shells. We met Jessica Hentoff, the Executive Director of Circus Harmony and her blossoming young circus students.

The first thing we were asked by them was to change our “boring white shoe laces” with any choice of colorful ones in the small shoelace factory on the second floor of the museum. It took me 20 hard minutes to take the decision which ones exactly. But at the end the snake texture of my new pinky-greeny shoelaces surrounded me with aura of rare satisfaction and fulfillment.

After an adventurous tour through the museum’s crypts, tunnels, slides and an attached airplane into metal construction of corridors and doors outside of the building on the wall, we landed on the chairs of the Circus Harmony Hall waiting for a breath taking spectacle with our Harmony Torch lit.

There we enjoyed watching the juggling of balls, knives, torches, walking on balls and acrobatic performances with rings from such excellent young performers as Book Kennison(the 15 year old ‘Twisted Juggler’ who appeared on David Letterman recently), Limed, IKing, Kellin, Elliana, Claire, Keaton and many more.

Bringing together children from different backgrounds, nationalities and skills, Circus Harmony teaches the art of life through circus education. The Harmony concept became so important for them that they changed this year their name to Circus Harmony from Everday Circus. “We use circus acts to create harmony in the world” says Jessica Hentoff, the founder.

So dear reader, you can imagine how inspired we were by them. Finally a few team members also tried some circus acts. Our team captain, Arpan, did some hand walking and participated in a head stand competition, while Linda and I walked for a few seconds on a big ball, but needless to say not any of us wanted to try the juggling with knives.

We had dinner at a nearby café treated by our good friends Drubha and Nayana from New York. The moment came when the owner cut a chocolate cake prepared for us. With a cup of wild raspberry tea, this was a very harmonious moment... my first day off on the World Harmony Run in almost a month.

Before going back to the cars, someone started a little relay run with the torch along the long dragon shaped fence of the museum as our long day off came to a close in St. Louis.

Maria (Bulgaria)

Heaps of Gratitude in St. Louis and Belleville

Last night, the official start of our day off the following day, we were treated to a wonderful meal at the Casteltown Geoghegan Restaurant in Belleville, Illinois. Kevin and Mary Gagen, the co-owners and proprietors, were so generous and kind to us and served us some incredibly delicious food. Our good friend Doug Kaufman, who lives in St. Louis and has been participating in our run every time we have come through here for many years, also helped to organize this great place. He also kindly escorted us to Ted Drew’s , an fantastic ice cream shop with some unique styles and flavors of custard ice cream, one of our most harmonious treats on the road.

We offer our deepest gratitude to Carl Phillips of the Ultrarunners Club for greeting us at the Gateway Arch and offering us a wonderful plaque from the St. Louis Ultrarunners Club and spending some time with us as we walked around this wonderful area of the city on our day off. We were also greeted at Keiner Plaza by Donna Springer and Ana Schnizer of the St. Louis Track Club, who spent some time with us sharing thoughts about running and harmony. It is so nice to be welcomed into a city by such friendly and caring people who also happen to be runners.

We also would like to offer our deepest gratitude to the St. Louis Bread Company in Fairview, Illinois for their contribution of fantastic sandwiches and salads for our lunch today.

We owe a large debt of gratitude to Jim Will and the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows Hotel for offering four complimentary rooms for two nights. These selfless offerings are a testament to the commitment and dedication that this establishment has towards the harmony and love of sharing and friendship even with the responsibilities to survive as a business.

We were also treated to a meal in St. Louis tonight by our good friends Nayana and Dhrubha Hein who could not make it to St. Louis but helped with today’s events and with covering the cost of the meal for the whole team. We thank them from the bottom of our hearts and hope that they can join us at some point as we approach New York in August.

We are also quite grateful to the City Museum for allowing us to explore their unique array of sculptures and amusements and to Jessica Hentoff and all of her circus performers as well as her ‘In-Laws’, Joan and Buzz Killian of The Shoelace Factory. With their wonderful and unique offerings of designer shoelaces for our ‘boring’ running shoes we can now run in style and celebrate Harmony in ‘living color’.

As you can see, our day off running actually resulted in a busier schedule than some of our running days. We did plenty of walking around town as we enjoyed only a small but significant part of this historic and revitalized city of St. Louis. To me, the deep sense of valuable history and incredible wisdom and vision symbolized by the breathtaking Gateway Arch which overlooks the unparalleled Mississippi River on the eastern border of St. Louis, will always be treasured and respected.

The Gateway Arch, also called the Jefferson Expansion Memorial, symbolizes and at the same time majestically honors the incredibly valuable vision of Thomas Jefferson to expand the horizons of this small and struggling newly born country two hundred years ago. His inspiration to send Lewis and Clarke to explore the unknown wilderness beyond the Mississippi River westward and at the same time maintain the harmony with the native people and nature, resulted in incredible progress and growth that has created this vast and diverse country.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote of his vision for America: “Mine, after all, may be a Utopian dream; but being innocent I have thought I might indulge in it, till I go to the land of dreams, and sleep there with the dreamers of all past and future times.”

We dedicate our Harmony Run to everyone who believes in the depth and the brilliance of Jefferson’s precious American Dream.

Hello sisters and brothers all over the world!

After yesterday’s incredibly exciting and joyous experience at the St. Louis City Museum, and the extraordinary performance by Circus Harmony (our thanks once again to the “Circus Harmony” family!), the women’s team spent our morning preparing lunch for our teammates. We dropped off their food at one o’clock, just in time to prevent them from dying of hunger.

In Drake, Missouri, I met Patrick, “a brother in harmony”, who mentioned that his wife calls him a dreamer, like John Lennon. I told him that many dreamers of world harmony have held the harmony torch, including the late Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and many others.

He put one hand over his heart, and grabbed my hand in the other and wished us all the best.

We will do our best to carry your dream of world-harmony all over the world, Patrick!

Thanks for your joyous enthusiasm!

Elke (Austria)

My First Day

For me the Harmony Run is a personal quest to expand my own vision of what I can accomplish in life.

I suffer from some mild physical challenges, including a hearing deficit and a rather curved spine. The World Harmony Run is a good chance for me to take yet another step beyond my so-called limitations.

I’m really grateful to participate in this wonderful, unusual project that brings so many different people together.

The very word “harmony” has always carried a lot of meaning for me. It is like a mantra, a word that embodies both power and music.

As I run along the big highways of Missouri, carrying a flaming torch under a bright, hot sun, I am trying to inspire not only others, but also myself. The World Harmony Run’s message of oneness and self-transcendence has already changed the way I view myself, my goals and my priorities. And for that I will always be extremely grateful to Sri Chinmoy, the race’s founder, and to all the dauntless runners carrying this message around the world.

Morris (Philadelphia)

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