The Two Legged Revolution

In Masanobu Fukuoka's wonderful book The One-Straw Revolution, in which he extols the virtues of natural farming methods, he writes:

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.

I kinda feel that way about cycling...

Pure cycling.... that does not require the over-accessorizing of the cyclist, that relies on traditional navigation: map-reading, recognizing landmarks, and being aware of the movements of birds and animals; that explores the local from a focussed centre, radiating concentrically...

In a 1982 interview with Mother Earth News, Fukuoka said that 'the real path to natural farming requires that a person know what unadulterdated nature is, so that he or she can instinctively understand what needs to be done - and what must not be done - to work in harmony with its processes'.

To be sure, unadulterated nature is a rarity in a world that has been ordered by man, but there are moments in even the most defined landscapes, of wildness and a sense of the pristine. The tops of hills, or even their slopes, can allow a sense of wilderness to enter, can uncontaminate the self.

And Fukuoka speaks of agriculture as a Way: 'To be here, caring for a small field, in full possession of the freedom and plentitude of each day, every day - this must have been the original way of agriculture'.

Just as cycling is a Way: To be here, caring for a small locale, in full possession of my wits and dynamism, this must have been the original way of human beings.