Life, lived through the senses

My favorite part about living in this area is the ability to get the best coffee in the Southeast and food from our local farmer's market as well as see a cow grazing in the fields, both within one or two miles.

For an "N" or intuitive vs. sensing person in the Myer's Briggs typology, I spend a lot of time in the focused inwards and in the imaginative, idealistic world of my mind. I think the reason I love running and biking (and yoga and surfing) so much is that these activities pull me back into my body. My sensing body interacting with the world in the present moment, sending perceptive signals to my mind connecting mind-body-nature.

Riding my bike out in the rural roads of Orange County: 

-seeing the idyllic rolling hills of vegetable fields, barns and animal pastures and the leaves dance in the wind;
-hearing a tractor and chainsaw, the sounds of cows, horses tempered by the hum of the wind in my ear generated from the movement of my body on the bike through space.
- inhaling and whiffing of the scent of blooming flowers and the occasional not pleasant smell of the pastures, mostly astounded by how consuming are the breathes of clean, country air.
- tasting the salt from the sweat dripping down to my lips as I take a sip of water

Above all, feeling the sensation of my body moving through space: my legs pedaling, I feel the tires grip the ground below, feel the wind against my whole being like a soft touch. The flow of prana - or life force - as I inhale all that is this section of the country road and exhaling myself
into my surroundings.... a glorious exchange; a beautiful fabric of each breath weaving together that which appears separate: my body and that which is not my body, becoming one with the bike that propels me forward and with my the engagement of each of my senses with everything around me.

Bike trip across NC

I had a renewed sense of pleasure (pun intended) from my "being-in-the-world" experience.  I felt the duality between mind & body disappear as well as the dichotomy between self and non-self disappear into a oneness with time & place.

Just a 45 minute bike ride. Such a simple activity but with the opportunity for it to be everything. Infinite number of moments and the infinite number of objects of the senses.

I felt it all.

PS- Picture is from biking across my lovely state with my best friend in life. Journal of the week-long trip here: click here or url: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/Sustain2007