Running Through Eden

Napoleon had died just over twenty years before wine-making in the Barossa Valley in South Australia began - which was around 1842.

Grape-growers and wine-makers in Australia were not all that favorably disposed to the French -, basically a lot of them had left Europe on account of the ravaging of the Napoleonic armies and the political strata who were Napoleonic supporters.

'Barossa' is from the Spanish word meaning 'muddy' and I guess there is some muddy ground in the Barossa.

A tiny fragment of Eden Valley,
in South Australia.

The fact is though, that the big grape variety of the place - and the iconic 'Barossa' wine style based on it - is from the French varietal the Syrah. And the variety is grown on what can be somewhat dry Continental ground with a little bit of maritime influence.

The Syrah grape is the offspring of two fairly obscure South-Eastern French grapes, the Mondeuse Blanche and the Dureza.

The Barossa region is a huge expanse of fertile land, somewhat inland although experiencing some effects of a maritime climate, but dominantly it is a Continental climate that obtains.

Eden Valley is a part of the Barossa Ranges, which are a range of 'mountains,' so-called, but they have hardly an elevation of 2,000 feet at their peaks.

The long sloping sides of the Eden Valley proper make for excellent running ground.

And everything about reaching your Ultimate Destination is also about the struggle to get there.

Humans are interesting animals, because they purposely set up seemingly artificial struggles to overcome, and often those are high hurdles.

Much of the well-off middle class world today is afflicted by the social and of course personal organic and psychological blight of Depression.

The sociology of the whole thing could show many different 'causes,' but one thing you will find commonly in the reporting on Depression by medical health professionals - is that the subjects virtually all said that key aspects of (their) life were too difficult for them, or that they 'were done' (meaning defeated by circumstances, by competition, by lack whether economic or educational).

In some, typically ancient, cultures and traditions, the concept of 'being defeated' at all simply does not exist as a possibility within the mindset of the individuals from those cultures.

99% dead - and yet still that person holds onto this crazy dogmatic idea that 'you can't defeat me until you really do defeat me.' 

When you pull on the running shoes, or whatever other thing you are going to attack the long road in - you do not start out with the thought 'I will never make this.'

In fact there is no 'make it.' Because there is no ending to get to. There is only the journey. This is the way of the winner.

Destinations have many things which fit into their totality.

And there is such a thing as the totality of victory. And the struggle is the way. 

Absolute fitness of mind and body are things that go together with wine. They are necessary factors.