I biked to work yesterday, and I’m getting ready to bike in again today. It’s a combination of the wind in my hair (through the bike helmet, of course), the mechanical feeling of my body pedaling, taking the long way there and back again to ride along the bike path and see the prana-infusing expanse of the Pacific. It’s also because, during deadline week, it may be the only exercise I get all day with feeling the weight of what’s looming over me.
And, on the way home, it’s easy to stop and duck in and out of stores without having to negotiate parking spaces. Yesterday, it was Lululemon to check out the new purples and then Santa Monica Co-Opportunity (one of my favorite places in this fine city) where I ran into a friend. It’s a amazing how a conversation over the merits of raw coconut ice cream and the vata-calming benefits of hot tea can turn into an impromptu Ayurvedic consultation where I’m dispensing advice in the grocery store aisles about adrenal exhaustion, building vital ojas—our immunity and reserves—and reminding her to spend some time each day with her feet on the earth.
So, even though I wear shoes as I bike, there is an aspect of it that is feet on the earth, propelled by my own muscular power. Fueled by vegetable soup and hot tea.