Cycling Meditations

Outflanking the Clouds

'Cloud-outflanking' is a skill all shamanic cyclists develop the more they cycle through the land (and sky). One develops a sense of movement, naturally, as one cycles naturally. Natural movement is the most natural thing on earth, yet the more modern we become the more we outsource that naturalness to unnaturalness, to sitting in a gym on a bike that goes nowhere.

Sorcery is all about sourcing your own, about getting into the 'earth' and avoiding 'world'. The world produces men, the earth brings forth wild creatures. I am 'of the earth' - a human - not the world (wer + alt, the age of man).

It is this chthonic aspect to being that reveals...

that allows one to outflank such things as clouds...

and to feel the approach of the weather before it happens.

Just like the ravens and the buzzards up here who never abandoned their open circuitry to the earth.

At the start of the Loch Humphrey path.

Coming up the Loch Humphrey path, only clouds..

The obelisk in the shrouded distance is the monument to Henry Bell (of The Comet fame) erected in 1838.

A rare roll cloud cutting across the river...

At the top of the 'Bastard' the weather is wetter as we enter more deeply into the cloud canopy...

Wake & Bike : A Wild Breakfast

It's a fine thing to get up and get out (on your feet) without any dilly-dallying. Pigeons do it, as do most wild animals: they energize the bodymind first thing so that the rest of the day can benefit from it. It's the most natural ritual in the whole animal world.

It's as natural as sleeping, this wakeful energizing, this galvanizing of the body-mind-earth. Indeed, many animals simply must do it in order to warm up and re-ignite their internal engines. And eat!
In the wild, the locomotive break-fast precedes all other breaks of fasts...

The problem with humans, or rather 'man', is that he has created all manner of artificial devices and external engines (that disembody and pollute us) to do this for him, so instead of going out for a cycle or a jog, he opens the fridge, turns on the heating, or jumps in his car. Gradually, man moves away from the source until such a point where he no longer knows what or where that source is. The result is a move away from natural ways, and from overall Health, with a corresponding move towards unnatural (mechanical-synthetic) ways, and towards disease.

Yet, it is only by re-turning to the source, to the Natural Ways, that man will ever regain his humanity... and the synergy that reveals the great Revelation...

So the next time you're tempted to turn up the heating, put on an extra sweater, or jump into your big gas-guzzling car, get out into the airs, and breathe! Re-wild your self... Wildness enriches the spirit...

Have a wild breakfast!

Wake and Bike!

Training Day: On the Way to Amalfi

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the rail network in Glasgow is great! And if, like me, you wish to get a little further out into the shires around the Glasgow strath, then train and bike it! Naturally, it helps if, like me, you live next to four different rail lines, and are fifteen minutes away from the city centre's hubs of Queen Street and Central stations. But even if you don't, in Glasgow, you're never far away from a railway.

This morning, I jumped across the motorway and onto the train (with bike) ate Dumbreck station. From here, it's a mere 13 minutes along the bucolic backline to Paisley Canal and the Sustrans cycle way down to the coast. This morning, I decided to head for Langbank (or Amalfi as I have now named it) via Bridge of Weir and the leisure lanes of Renfrewshire.

The idyllic leisure lanes between Bridge of Weir and the Clyde.

The cloud cover brings with it a smorgasbord of effects and qualities which work their way into the bodymind rendering it no longer simply 'bodymind' but 'body-mind-earth'.

Suddenly, after a couple of hours of darkness, the light spills forth... atop Barscube Hill.

Up and over. Head down through Langbank golf course (there's a wee path-right of way that leads you down the 17 and 18th to the clubhouse. Then take the little steep lane on your right down to Langbank train station.