Fun Biking Tips


Looking to get more out of your wheel time? Here are some bicycling trip tips from RoadBikeJourney.com.


n Try a new route today n Bring a camera along


n Join a riding club and attend a bike race


n Invite your spouse or a friend to be a ride buddy


n Track total mileage and roads via GPS


n Use a heart rate monitor and log the encouraging stats


Riding Resources USA Cycling, the sport’s national governing body, is hosting 17 national competitions with expos around the country this year in mountain, road and track categories for juniors, collegiate, open and senior divi- sions, plus many other local events. Visit USACycling.org to search for nearby riding clubs and and year-round events. Since 1986, the nonprofit Rails-to-


Trails Conservancy (RailsToTrails.org) has been using former rail lines and connecting corridors to expand bicycling opportuni- ties. To date, the Washington, D.C.-based organization has converted 20,000-plus miles of rail-trails and is currently seek- ing to add another 9,000 miles. Its largest annual participatory event is the 335-mile Greenway Sojourn, from D.C. to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from June 17 to 24. Many parks and recreation


departments support off-road clubs that preserve and maintain biking trails, and statewide bicycling associations welcome participation. Also check for information and opportunities via AdventureCycling.org, BicycleFriendlyCommunity.org, BikeLeague. org, BikesBelong.org, ClimateRide.org, imba. com (International Mountain Bicycling As- sociation) and PeopleForBikes.org. Pedal power to the people!


Randy Kambic, in Estero, FL, is a freelance writer and a copyeditor for Natural Awakenings.


The Power of Place T


by Linda Sechrist


he qualities that make a place spe- cial to us are highly personal, and they often help us to define who we


are. Whether the setting is a lake house, a mountain lodge, a seashore cottage or a backyard at twilight, our sensory connec- tions to these special places shape us in deep and lasting ways. Childhood experi- ences of our hometowns and memorable spots where we ran free during summer vacations are often deeply embedded in our strongest memories. This relationship to place is one that we carry within ourselves for a lifetime. Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner noted that his own “little postage stamp of native soil” was an inexhaustible source of material. Fellow Mississippian and Pulitzer Prize winner Eudora Welty wrote, “Place ab- sorbs our earliest notice and attention, it bestows on us our original aware- ness; and our critical powers spring up from the study of it and the growth of experience inside it. It is to this place that each of us goes to find the clearest, deepest identity of ourselves.” Psychologist Carl Jung lived nearly half his life in a home he built in the village of Bolligen, on Switzerland’s Lake Zurich. In his memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung remarked, “At Bolligen, I am in the midst of my true life, I am most deeply myself. At times I feel as if I am spread out over the land- scape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of


the waves, in the clouds and the ani- mals that come and go, in the proces- sion of the seasons. In Bolligen, silence surrounds me almost audibly, and I live in modest harmony with nature.” Iona Dreaming: The Healing Power


of Place, is Clare Cooper Marcus’ jour- nal of her six months on the Scottish island of Iona. The author writes, “I feel pure in this place. It is as if there was no separation between my living, breathing, perceiving body and my soul-nature. No posturing, no pretending. I am who I am—no more, no less. As my breath- ing slows and I relax, I experience the sound of the sea passing through me— not me hearing the sea, not me and the sea—just the sound. A breeze blows across my face; the sun shines on my cheeks and forehead. For a moment, they seem to penetrate my body. Then, they just are. My body ceases to exist. No Clare or ego or a specific person, but a manifestation of divine energy just like everything around me… our separate- ness just an illusion.” These kinds of intimate experiences occur most often when we are in a relaxed or meditative state, or spending full-bodied, multisensory, openhearted time in nature. Such moments inspire the experience described by American Poet Robinson Jeffers in which we “fall in love outward.”


Linda Sechrist is a senior staff writer for Natural Awakenings magazines.


natural awakenings May 2012 25


inspiration


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