Uphill Just Got Easier
Moving from coastal flatlands to the mountains has certainly challenged my ability to cycle. In fact, I haven’t even ridden my road cycle since arriving here in the Smoky Mountains in late November. And that bike is my sweetheart. There aren’t really designated bike lanes or worse, flat places in which to ride. Nothing comes close to that blistering 33 foot elevation I’d experience while riding through Gulf State Park. Or the 77 foot high bridge. No, here the elevations are in hundreds of feet. There’s even a chart for the Blue Ridge Parkway of elevation gain per section…and it’s not exactly a comforting document to behold.
The intimidating road cycling here prompted me to invest in a mountain bike. It has been years since I did off-road cycling but I figured I could at least break into elevations on the trails before trying the roads. Where I’d ride 20 miles and know I could have gone many more in the flatlands, if I make it 6 or 8 miles on my mountain bike I feel a nice accomplishment.
But yesterday I had a breakthrough and I think it’s a breakthrough that applies most wonderfully to the rest of my life. It seems simple but it made an incredible difference in my ability to pedal up some challenging hills.
On the usual 8 mile ride I do on a wide, gravel trail there are a few hills that prompt me to get off and walk my bike. Even in the lowest gear my legs protest too much. When I attempted them yesterday, I noticed I was energetically pushing myself up rather than staying centered over my bike with my attention and energy. When I brought my focus into the exact present moment and location in space, I found my bike was moving up the hill with much less effort and pain.
That may sound weird but it happened on several hills and I was able to continue pedaling up inclines that had previously caused me to give up and walk up. After the first success, I begin to fine-tune my attention and recreate it with other hills.
In the frustrating bike-walks, the moment I gave up I noticed my energy and attention was focused far up the hill and it seemed impossible to continue. In fact, my first ride there a rider was pushing up the hardest hill and so that outcome seemed normal. It’s what my mind accepted as true and right. But then I read a review on the trails at Deep Creek and the writer said the cycling was easy there. WHAT!?! As compared to what? Cycling up Clingman’s Dome?
But that came to mind as I was pedaling. How can I make this easier?My body took over and basically said…watch this.It was as simple as pulling my energy back to the exact place where my body was working. I had been directing my attention and thus my energy far up the hill and leaving less of me to actually pedal.
It’s difficult to accomplish one task if my mind is elsewhere. But if I give it my full attention, without focusing on the final outcome, I have more energy available to complete the task in front of me.
We are taught to live in the future, to always focus on ‘down the road’ to create a life of success and affluence. To support ourselves we are taught we must always think of the future. Yet when we do this we often miss the true beauty and richness of life. If our energy is tossed out into some unknown place far ahead, our daily lives can be more difficult because less of our self is present to create, live.
My goal is to make it up the hill but to do so I have to be totally present and keep my energy right here with me to make the effort less difficult. That’s what my bicycle teaches me. I can’t thrive in daily life if I am constantly worried about the future, if my focus is on some imaginary moment down the road of life when everything comes together. That place comes along organically by the everyday present moments of attention given to the quality of life in the here and now.
Struggle increases when we project our energy outside of ourselves to force an outcome. When we ease off and just stay present, life changes…for the better even though it still requires effort.
My road bike just had a tune-up. She’s ready to ride some off-the-beaten-path paved roads….am I? I’m getting there. Definitely…getting there.
During my yoga practice this morning I felt anger arise. My thoughts kept returning to racial prejudices, white terrorists, environmental laws and regulations being abolished, violence, meanness, insanity of political leadership. At first I redirected my mind to stay with the practice and steered it away from the anger but my body, opening more as I stretched and breathed into it, led me to be present with my emotions. As I stretched and breathed I invited my anger to be with me on the mat.
Too often we judge ourselves negatively when unpleasant or uncomfortable feelings arise–yet isn’t a foundation of yoga to be present with ourselves no matter what?
So today, my anger and I practiced yoga together. It doesn’t have to hide from me any longer. Perhaps the most spiritual practice we can do is to simply practice self-acceptance, self-love. For that is the basis of love that can then flow to others freely and without judgment.
As I was walking down the mountain this morning I thought about the little herd of white-tailed does that live here. It’s always a joy to see them. Once I was standing under a tree watching a hooded warbler sing and heard a sharp and powerful snort and foot stamp. I turned in time to see a big doe bound off through the woods.
As I continued walking this morning my mind wandered to the bucks and their antlers and then to the elk that live nearby and their gigantic antlers. White-tailed bucks begin growing theirs in late March and continue to grow them until August. They have the fastest growing bone, some growing 200 inches in 120 days. And then…they fall off in January or February.
As I thought about that process, I felt a sort of kinship with those guys. Growing, growing, growing…then bam. Gone! Then start over…growing, growing, growing. It seemed all too familiar for the cycles of life humans grow through. Not so much the physical but the emotional and spiritual cycles. Relationships…double ugh. Talk about cycles.
It was a bit depressing thinking of the continuing, spiraling cycles of growth. Seriously. What’s the point if we keep repeating the same lessons and re-visiting the same old stuff? The same questions revolving in and out of our minds…blah, blah, blah.
I was walking along a gravel road where I live, surrounded by green…trees, wildflowers…and mountains. And as I paused to be present with all the bountiful beauty, I heard clear as a bell, The cycles in Nature are the point. Being present with the cycles is the entire point of it all. Not going anywhere in particular in life but being present with whatever is happening. 
So…there’s no destination. Nowhere to be. Nothing to escape from or go to. Every morning awaken, arise, live, rest. Really?, I asked.
Antlers…who knew they held such wisdom.
It’s been ten years today.
After documenting the oil spill for a year on the Alabama Gulf Coast, I thought it would be the wake-up event that would shake the world. I was wrong. Completely wrong. As soon as the well was capped…which wasn’t soon–85 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes–that mile-deep gusher polluted the Gulf of Mexico.
Chemical dispersants were used that made the spill MUCH worse than letting the oil float to the surface for removal. I watched tide pools of fizzing oily water along the beach and witnessed the destruction first-hand.
My heart broke open. I felt grief beyond anything I had known. I felt anger. I felt shame at being human and part of the problem. And now, ten years later, I feel rather hopeless because there wasn’t an awakening…for some of us, sure. But overall…now regulations are fewer and more lax thanks to the current USA administration…worse than before the spill.
We have an even greater opportunity to awaken on a worldwide level with a tiny virus making a huge impact. My greatest fear is we will not take advantage of this opportunity to make major changes that will improve the health of all life on planet Earth…and that would be the saddest of all outcomes. With such a high death toll my prayer is that it will fuel a world-wide awakening to positive change so these deaths will not have been in vain.
I wasn’t going to write about the oil spill disaster today but how could I not? It was an awakening for me and I will never be the same. Which is a good thing because I won’t go back to sleep…ever.
P.S. I don’t know why I tasted oil in the air that night in Curacao but I suspect on some level I sensed what happened. We are One, connected to all life. Perhaps my cetacean self got the message loud and clear.
We’re in a time now where the system is damaged. We’ve known it hasn’t been working for quite a while. So during this time of pause we have the opportunity to choose what we will input once things are up and running again. And so the question comes, What kind of world do we want?
Do we want more time at home with family? Do we want to do more things that enrich our life? Do we want to feel more compassion, more connection, more Oneness? Everything is up for renewal, rebooting.
So in this time of pause, the gift we are given is the choice to make changes that will steer us into a new direction. It’s easier to go back to what we’ve known but will we have the courage to make life-enhancing choices? Every one of us is being given the opportunity to choose…What kind of world do you want?
