Bicycle Meditation

I found this passage in Claire Petersky's Enlightening website "Bicycling Meditations." Claire also outlines her instructions on using your bicycle wheel as a prayer wheel on the site, which I hope to explore in more detail later.

Like most meditations, you can begin by being aware of your breath while on the bike. How does it feel to breathe in and out while you're moving along? You can spend some time here, feeling the breath going in, going out. You can picture all the good things flowing into your system on the in-breath, and then the out-breath is where everything you don't need flows out. You don't need to pull in forcefully the stuff you need, and you don't need to push out the stuff you don't. It just flows in and out, naturally. This feels very good...

If you can move along, comfortable with your breath, your body, and your pedaling, then you are in your bicycle home. Any time you have an experience on your bike that disturbs you, such as a motorist who came too close, or the recollection of something embarrassing you did the day before, you can return to your breath and your pedaling, and be in a place of calm and peace.

The Bicycle Lord's Prayer

The Bicycle Lord's Prayer made it's Bike Temple debut recital at our organizer's meeting last night. Rev. Phil introduced us to these holy words, as he did so long ago on the KBOO bike show.


Our father, whose art's in heven, hollow be thy frame. Thy links' cogs run. Thy wheel be done on earth, as it is in bicycle heaven. Give us this day our steely thread. And forgive us our dents, as we fogive our denters, or dentees. So why not lead us into temptation, as long as you're delivering us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, and the pedal power, and the chrome-plated glory, for ever. AMEN