Día de la Tierra
Posted: April 17, 2015 Filed under: Kindness, Meditation, Mindfulness, Yoga | Tags: Bliss, blogging, Body Image, community, compassion, cycling, Earth Day, family, kindness, love, Mindfulness, nature, Omaha, passion, Seva, weekend, Zen 4 CommentsGod wanted to make heaven and the earth is that heaven. Nowhere in the universe there is so much love, life, beauty and peace. Enjoy your stay with the fellow beings-
Its Earth Day/Week\Weekend once again, which can only mean that it is time for a torrent of pecksniffian-esque blog posts and woefully self-serving “talk” beating us upside the head with the benefits of green living. Plant a tree, maybe two? Recycle this and that, munch on some kale and drive a Prius. Lament about our filthy ways, buy an Earth-friendly yoga mat and a 100% recycled content bicycle saddle. Peruse green-themed cycling and yoga magazines, grow your own “herbs“, and swap the old light-bulbs, (that work perfectly fine) for the energy-saving ones because the government said we had to.
With the infinite amount of environmental issues confronting our beautiful planet: Global warming, the increasingly trash filled oceans, deforestation of the Amazon Forest, Monsanto and our insistent overuse of pesticides and herbicides? There are far-reaching global issues for us all to feel terrible about.
…
I spend a lot, and I mean a lot of time riding dusty gravel roads in and alongside the farmlands here in Nebraska. Nothing troubles me more than seeing the signage of a freshly sprayed field with pesticide and herbicide. Pausing for a moment, beer cans and trash bother me more, but this is a rant for another day. From my humble perspective, these “global” issues seem far too vast even to wrap my simple mind around, much less address and take action on. Its only when we, you and I, pause for a fleeting moment during Earth Day/Week\Weekend long enough to acknowledge the scale of these problems and how long it might take, to take meaningful action. I get discouraged, if not pissed off lamenting these global “problems,” and nothing pisses me off more than seeing Natural Ice beer cans strewn along a 100 mile stretch of gravel road(s).
Allow me if you may, to turn my frustration over to the beautiful and inspiring poet William Blake. Blake once remarked: Don’t think big, think small in his Auguries of Innocence. William Blake goes on to eloquently write that the ability “To see the world in a grain of sand, And Heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.”
It only takes a moment, a deep breath, a gentle heartbeat during one of these rides for me to shift my attention to a simple grain of gravel on the road or a single Black Eyed Susan sprouting in a nearby field. If I look at a kernel of corn in the palm of my hand, snap another bite of a freshly picked wild apple. If I really pay attention to the parts of the world that are right in front of me, right now? I eventually witness everything I was meant to see.
Daily Meditation:
Do something small with me this Earth Day/Week\Weekend. Over time? These small actions grow into something amazing! If you are curious about my “small” project? Please feel free to contact me/leave a comment and I will be more than happy to share. Take care and have a wonderful weekend!
: Many Thanks :
Posted: March 22, 2015 Filed under: Kindness, Meditation, Mindfulness, Yoga | Tags: Bicycling, blogging, CultFit readers rock!, cycling, Cyclocross, desire, gratitude, love, Mountain Biking, Omaha, passion, Spring, thank you, weekend, yoga 9 CommentsSome people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses-
…
Thank you for your continued support of my humble blog-o-thing! Its your kindness, passion and well – being pretty darn inspiring folks, that keeps me rolling along. Take care and be well!
…
Consuming Desire
Posted: March 19, 2015 Filed under: Kindness, Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, compassion, Consuming Desire, desire, Katrina Vandenberg, kindness, love, meditation, passion, yoga 6 Comments…
I’m not making this up. In Cafe Latte’s wine bar
one of the lovely coeds at the next table
touched John on the arm as if I wasn’t there
and said, Excuse me, sir, but what
is that naughty little dessert?
And I knew from the way he glanced
at the frothy neckline of her blouse,
then immediately cast his eyes on his plate
before giving a fatherly answer,
he would have given up dessert three months
for the chance to feed this one to her.
I was stunned; John was hopeful;
but the girl was hitting on his cake.
Though she told her friend until they left
she did not want any. I wish she wanted
something—my husband, his cake, both at once.
I wish she left insisting
upon the beauty of his hands, his curls,
the sublimeness of strawberries
and angel food. But she was precocious,
and I fear adulthood is the discipline
of being above desire, cultivated
after years of learning what you want
and where and how, after insisting
that you will one day have it. I don’t
ever want to stop noticing a man like the one
at the bar in his loosened tie, reading
the Star Tribune. I don’t want to eat my cake
with a baby spoon to force small bites,
as women’s magazines suggest. And you
don’t want to either, do you? You want a big piece
of this world. You would love to have the whole thing.
– Katrina Vandenberg
Greeting to Spring (Not Without Trepidation)
Posted: March 5, 2015 Filed under: Kindness, Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, compassion, Identity, kindness, life, love, meditation, nature, passion, Poetry, Prose, Robert Lax, writing, yoga Leave a comment…
Over the back of the Florida basker,
over the froth of the Firth of Forth,
Up from Tahiti and Madagascar,
Lo, the sun walks north.
The first bright day makes sing the slackers
While leaves explode like firecrackers,
The duck flies forth to greet the spring
And sweetly municipal pigeons sing.
Where the duck quacks, where the bird sings,
We will speak of past things.
Come out with your marbles, come out with your Croup,
The grass is as green as a Girl Scout troop;
In the Mall the stone acoustics stand
Like a listening ear for the Goldman band.
At an outside table, where the sun’s bright glare is,
We will speak of darkened Paris.
Meanwhile, like attendants who hasten the hoofs
Of the ponies who trot in the shadow of roofs,
The sun, in his running, will hasten the plan
Of plants and fishes, beast and man.
We’ll turn our eyes to the sogging ground
And guess if the earth is cracked or round.
Over the plans of the parties at strife,
Over the planes in the waiting north,
Over the average man and his wife,
Lo, the sun walks forth!
– Robert Lax
How About : You :
Posted: February 27, 2015 Filed under: Kindness, Meditation, Yoga | Tags: beauty, Bicycling, blogging, Comminity, cycling, hate, kindness, love, meditation, Omaha, passion, social media, Urban Transportation, writting, yoga 18 CommentsI left my youth behind me. It peddled the bicycle while I rode on the handlebars-
” … Get a car you ironically tattoo adorned, Lycra sporting hipster!!!” I remember these harsh words as though they were strewn upon me yesterday morning, instead of two months ago commuting to work on bike.
…
Was I shocked? Somewhat. I was simply making a right hand turn after stopping at a stop sign at 5am, when over my left shoulder, I was spewed vile hatred upon by some dude. I thought briefly about trying to catch up with him, and having a gentlemanly conversation. Instead, I simply put my head down and set a good pace up the next few hills that eagerly awaited me.
What worries my heart the most, is the need to make these flippant remarks in the first place. It makes me wonder about our current human nature and the impulse or desire to engage in this kind of behavior. The kind of behavior we witness online, where our words carry a great weight with little or no courage, to form a coherent and critical response.
…
Why does it bother someone if I ride to work on my bike? Have tattoos and practice yoga? Why do people feel the need to project hatred and vomit at every turn? Kindness and love have been cast ad acta, a relic of a bygone world. We live in a world now where a fussilade of hate awaits us around every corner in life.
Daily Meditation:
As we gently ease into March this coming weekend. The undercurrents of my posts will warm to the wonders that cycling and nature so kindly present us. I hope you tag along for the ride …
CultFit 