Just Pedaling Through

"Many of the things I’ve written about the cities might be said to be self-examination."   David Byrne

One of the greatest pleasures to me of thinking, and the joy of exploring, is the endless discovery inherent in the activity. Listening to David Byrne introduce (via podcast) his new audiobook, Bicycle Diaries, reminds me of why I enjoy his personality and why I’m glad he shares his thoughts and expressions so freely, even if so carefully crafted. I think about this level of sharing after the latest Joy of Health seminar I attended this past Sunday.  Kathy Oddenino’s passion for sharing wisdom is palpable and contagious. The dialogue was fun. The excitement built as the day went on. We continued as we went on to dinner after the seminar. The food was delicious, the company stimulating and warm. I didn’t really think much about “thinking” and speaking as our highest order of senses until I began to study Spiritual Philosophy. I’m reminded always how all of our senses are heightened by learning to consciously use them, with love.  It was a great day.

In his introduction, David Byrne talks about the joys of bicycling. He explains how he expanded his cycling adventures beyond Soho in New York, the neighborhoods where he lives and visits most frequently, to exploring big cities around the world. What a way to chronicle places, visions of how and where we live, what we live with and what we leave behind and change as we live and move on. 

I feel this way about the sky, and capturing pictures of clouds as the light and seasons change. I think this comes from my early fascination with clouds and their colors as I looked out of airplane windows as a child, crossing the Atlantic back and forth. Some of the visuals are still vivid in my mind – that heaving dark water so far below, the trails and wisps and banks of clouds as the sun set and rose. It was captivating, fantastic to me. The joy of just watching has come back to me now, after years of not really thinking as much about it. Looking at the weather map this morning on the news gave me a portrait of an “epic storm” and its path across the Midwest and then East.  Pictures of the aftermath showed up from different areas along the path. Tornadoes with hurricane-force winds! Here, today, the sun is shining brightly even as a breeze is blowing through the trees and big thick clouds build and then blow by. It is summertime-warm. I’m sweating. The windows are open and the fans are blowing. Tree leaves are changing color and the big oak that was hit by lightning a few months ago is withering  brown and grey, still statuesque.

I can relate these visions to the energy of personalities and how we change. It is a bit like looking at bellows, an accordion. I feel my cells living and breathing, from a small fractal into larger fractals, and I now recognize the personality patterns and how I have lived them/expressed them throughout my life. I see the patterns I’m working (thinking) through to change completely into new, loving patterns. Chrysalis to flight.

I think the heart of the lesson is this: sometimes when I am immersed in, or have a new dose of knowledge, of “medicine” as knowledge (such as a seminar), I am at first very excited, thoroughly motivated, energized by it. As the knowledge settles into my mind, my body, my energy fields, I accept it on some levels of energy and not as easily at other levels of thinking, where I have to acknowledge and BE the changes totally.  Like the weather, my energy patterns move and change! I react to the thought energy (of love, invitation to change, to BE love) at some levels that I am not immediately conscious of, and these are the levels that trigger my irritation, confusion ( resistance!) until known. As I make myself conscious of these energies, I can change them – as if spreading them out on a table. I feel the energy more intensely, and am also aware of the reality (truth) of my energy as I interact with others. The truth plays out as I Am, in that moment, always invited to change, to love. Love is the healing energy!