After returning from Japan to our ‘regular’ lives in America, we found after a few weeks we needed a breather. So we went down to Bernardo wildlife refuge to see the cranes. It brought a freshness to our perspective and brightness to our day, kind of like the sound Molly Tuttle generates with her acoustic guitar in this video makes me say WOW!

We were lucky that day, the birds were right up next to the loop road through the refuge. The cranes and snow geese didn’t seem to mind us watching them. The sounds of all the squawking were loud! A couple from Colorado said they’ve visited before, but today’s display of nature was “stunning”! And so much subtlety. At one point a herd of deer walked right through the flocks before disappearing into the corn field.

It brought us into the present moment, the now of nature’s originality. Kind of wakes you up from your civilized slumber and brings you back into that flow of wonder. As daylight faded we moved to the ponds area where the birds roost for the night.

We love going out and observing nature. Renews our spirit. This last picture is from Bosque del Apache, further south on the Rio Grande. I’ll end with a quote from the N. Scott Momaday, who passed on earlier this year. I’ve used it before, but I don’t think he would mind me repeating it since much of his writing was circular. He articulated with words what I had been feeling since I moved west to Reno in 1997 and started cycling everyday. Such a beautiful string of words creating continuity with our interior and outside worlds. Renewing traditions. Returning home and realizing where we live. Appreciating things fully. Reminds us of what a beautiful world we live in. Revitalizing!

What is it that awakens in my soul when I walk in the desert, when I catch the scent of rain, when I see the sun and moon rise and set on all the colors of the earth, when I approach the heart of wilderness?  What is it that stirs within me when I enter upon sacred ground?  For indeed something does move and enliven me in my spirit, something that defines my very being in the world.  I realize my humanity in proportion as I perceive my reflection in the landscape that enfolds me.  –N. Scott Momaday, Testimony, 1996.

This post is about murals and public art I’ve seen while cycling here in Albuquerque, much of it discovered while simply out for a ride. New Mexico is renowned for natural landscapes, and also for our cultural places. Murals unite the two. Visit Albuquerque‘s motto is “change your perspective”. What better way to shift our view than to hop on a bike and go for a ride? We see more at cycling pace, out in the open air under wondrous skies.

“What if there’s a way that we can end up thinking and feeling and knowing that we are coming from nature, that we’re a part of nature, instead of just thinking: What can we use it for?” – Yo-Yo Ma, Our Common Nature, NYTimes

I met the muralist Dimitri Kadiev at Michael Thomas Coffee on Carlisle. He’s pictured below. Dimitri was painting his mural and stopped to talk with me. Bikes are so easy to park! I can get off and walk around and explore in detail when I find something I like.

Dimitri’s art evokes a story, but talking to him was truly enchanting. He has a way of creating landscapes with his stories. He doesn’t own a home, rather travels and lives where he works, often times housed by the client commissioning his art. I learned a lot from him about geographies, landmarks, and walking journeys that connect places together through meaningful human movement, and people encountered on the way.

This mural is on Silver Ave in the Nob Hill neighborhood in Albuquerque. Yo-Yo Ma played a series of concerts in national parks, at the Grand Canyon, Mammoth Cave, etc. to set his music in outdoor, natural environments. I feel lucky that my cycling activity takes place in the great outdoors on every ride.

“Lately, I have realized, that the time I spend in nature, brings me back to something much bigger than myself. It brings me to wonder.” –Yo-Yo Ma, Our Common Nature, on Amanpour and Company

Murals give a kind of visual narrative, a picture story, that tells of our place in the land. This one is on Kei and Molly’s textile shop. The landscape feels more familiar when I see art representing us in this way.

The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is graced with this wintry scene. Our travelways are a kind of social fabric if we tune into the art connecting us with these stories. “This is medicine hiding in plain sight” as the surgeon general Vivek Murthy says on the importance of social connection to our health and well-being.

A cinder block wall near Garfield Middle School. A pleasant surprise on a day when I was exploring on bike and was basically lost. Inspiring to see.

Part of the new Vision Zero mural on Louisiana. ( https://www.artful-life.org/vision-zero-mural )

This one is near a busy road, Lomas and 11th St NW. I was so focused on checking traffic I almost missed this on a side street. It is on the wall of Debajo Tapas Y Vino.

This may not be a mural so to speak, rather it is an advertisement for the Albuquerque Museum exhibit. But it reminded me of how the bike was key to my ‘journey west’, and in particular, finally arriving here! After having traveled through and visited a few times before.

I’m not going to say any more, but may be you can find the rest yourself! And discover more that I haven’t seen. Wishing you happy trails and fun discoveries!

Resources:
Some of Dimitri Kadiev’s Albuquerque murals are featured here: https://compassroses.art/murals-by-dimitri-kadiev/

“If you notice someone in error, then correct this person and his mistake in a humble way. If he does not listen to you, blame yourself only; or, even better, do not blame anybody, but continue to be humble.” –Marcus Aurelius quoted in A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy

Mai convinced me to head up with her to Rocky Mountain National Park for a few days of camping last July. We spent two days on the west side of the continental divide, and two days on the east side. I brought my bike and rode each day. It was delightful.

I loved climbing up the long inclines from each side, the road carrying you high into the sky, above treeline, into the alpine tundra. Just riding there was a pinnacle experience. Cycling is a perfect match for exploring the scenic drives. It makes me feel more like myself. And when you feel like your true self, you really get a better sense of each place.

“The meaning lies in the effort itself.” –Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

We also took some sweet walks, including through areas where fires had scarred the landscape. The soil was already regenerating. Nature’s resilience.

And on the east side we hiked to Dream Lake and Emerald Lake. There is something about the pitch of the land and textures of the trail you take in on a walk, the rhythm of making steps, that activates your original mind. You get to know a place with your body, engaged senses, through your heart, beyond consciousness.

So glad we took our time there! I liked the west side better, with the hallmark aridity you feel in much of the west. The openness. The vastness. The clarity. The east side was fine too, reminding me of my roots in the east and midwest. Returning home, we stopped in downtown Denver at the Pacific Mercantile Company to stock up on food. They had a nice series of statues there. This one’s inscriptions summed up this trip.

Each ride I take is a nice exercise in adventure, making my own way, crossing divides, and somehow molding me into a kinder person I hope, if only I can follow my inner direction.

“So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others, and you will be helped by others. Before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.” –Shunry Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

I am grateful Mai took me camping and encouraged me to ride my bike up the mountains and across the divide! If you’re interested in seeing more of Rocky Mtn Nat. Park through my rides, there are maps and pictures on Strava, the activity sharing app. you can load onto your phone. Strava is free to use.

Beautiful Kawuneeche Valley (Colorado headwaters)
https://www.strava.com/activities/7528218821
Rocky Mountain Sunflowers https://www.strava.com/activities/7533830156
Moraine Park to Bear Lake https://www.strava.com/activities/7534711374
Tundra bathing via Old Fall River Road https://www.strava.com/activities/7538650135

How is it that the search to overcome our alienation from ourselves can also open up the possibility of deeper, richer relationships with all living beings, with all of nature? The hope with contemplative practice is that any healing that takes place within us can in turn contribute to a larger healing. –Douglas Christie, “The Desert Within”, from The Sun Magazine, January 2022 edition

During the first winter of the pandemic, my wife and I started visiting the wildlife refuges to the south of us regularly to rediscover a sense of wholeness and peace. Although we have been making such trips since we moved here seven years ago, I think we fell in love again. Even though the human world seems a mess sometimes, the power of nature can remind us we are living in beauty. Just pay attention to it!

We drive our car down there, but it is only one leg of the journey. The real adventure begins when we step out into the bliss that is this landscape all around us. We climb out of the car and stand on our legs again. You feel the breeze on your skin. Even a cold winter’s day the sun is like an eye in the sky, shining its warming light everywhere on the earth. You hear the cranes calling. Our senses expand outward into those vast spaces listening to all that is around us. We are filled up with nature again. A subtle symphony of sound, but also with clear distinct voices. We’ve escaped from distractions.

Even though our worlds are so different, it really is all connected. The water at the refuges is part of the same system of water that runs through our city. That we drink from our faucets. That we sip now as we wait quietly for sunset sipping our hot tea.

It’s that same sky that is above Albuquerque, though the ambiance is a little different in each particular place, at different elevations, with local rivers, mesas, and mountains. At some of the refuges I can even see the same mountains we see from Albuquerque, the Manzanos and the Sandias, though they are between 20 and 60 miles away. We see the same sunset. There is a symmetry there between worlds.

On one visit we arrived a day after winter storms blew through. The crystalline sky still had moisture in it, made visible by the clouds, and the air was so clear with all the particulate matter having been ‘rained’ out. You could feel the connection with that storm even though it was a day later. Just like the drying sunflower bulbs echo the summer season that blossomed, and will bloom yet again.

Standing there observing nature, we are learning to be still. Our awareness is trained by the action happening around us. And moving through us. A sense of love bubbles up. I think these trips to where nature abounds is restorative. Of course we all deserve to have this right at home too. To build our world in a way that places us in the beauty and recognizes that we need it like we need love, rest and recovery.

I got my legs back in Chicago. When I visited my father in downtown Chicago last May, I walked everywhere, since the city is set up that way. Walking is the fundamental way of going places in downtown Chicago, so you do it naturally. After a year of rehabilitating my stride–recovering from a hip injury in 2020–I finally didn’t have to think about the whole process of walking as a deliberate action. I just thought of where I wanted to go, and got up and went there, usually with family. That was an awesome corner to round.

Our pandemic ‘breakout’ trip of 2021 included travels to Chicago to visit my father, who lives downtown in a high rise building, just a few blocks from the lake. Staying in Chicago was special. Downtown is such a high density place. It was magical to see my dad, and he put us up in a guest apartment on the 30th-something floor in his building. It happened to be right across from the “Shirley Ryan Ability Lab“, which was very interesting to me, because I had spent two weeks in a rehabilitation hospital healing my hip. We also had a great view of the street below, so I could observe traffic flow and how everybody walks! Every day out of the morning silence the street would come to life with pedestrians, people being people.

My dad actually walks everywhere. He likes to swim too but walking is the main form of exercise and transportation. He walks to restaurants, around neighborhoods, to many of his medical appointments, and he walks to the Chicago Symphony. When we were there he walked us to Millennium Park, Navy Pier and more of the tourist trails. It was a low stress and easy way to get around. Just put on your shoes, grab water, and go.

The hardest part of the visit was actually getting downtown. The drive in was tough, with stop and go motorized traffic, but once we parked the car and put our feet on the ground, we recovered quickly soaking in the richness of our surroundings. I brought my bicycle with me, thankfully! Every morning I would get up and go ride for a couple hours on the Lakeshore Trail and beyond. This was delightful exploring the city on my own two wheels, and served as a nice routine of self-care. Cycling daily helped me relax and settle into place, so I could really focus on enjoying the time spent with family. It was like my morning meditation, albeit a rolling one.

I seem to be shy when it comes to taking pictures of people, but the actual people presence in Chicago was something! It is so different than where I live in Albuquerque, or in a place like Phoenix, where you can drive through the city without hardly seeing anyone. Being downtown Chicago out with others walking felt like an ’embodied community’, where the physical form, shape and movement of people is the fundamental reality. Maybe this is like seeing the river system and Lake Michigan and trees growing toward the sky in Chicago’s dense urban center, seeing nature’s infrastructure underneath all of our buildings and other creations and systems, and as a canopy overhead, and in fact running through everything, flowing through us.

It was fun to travel and reflect on it all. I felt safer walking Chicago, perhaps because there were so many people out. I felt less self-conscious and like people walking garnered a higher level of respect, perhaps because everyone walks there, so the community is reflected back in the everyday landscape. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch. Cars are allowed almost everywhere so you’re still exposed to car traffic most of the time. The noises and smells were not always pleasant, and the tall buildings obscure many views. But when I got going on my two feet, I felt unbounded freedom!

We also did some suburban walking when we visited my sister’s family in the Chicago suburb of Lombard. There they have the “Prairie Path” trail system, which traverses their community, and connects their suburban home to main street in Lombard. We walked the soft surface path to Lilacia Park to see the flower blooms in May. It was a great way to get a sense of their community, the place where they make their home.

That visit to Chicago was really a turning point in my recovery. It had become a chore to track my movements all the time, to have to make a special effort to walk. It was all prelude to what happened in Chicago, when I found my stride naturally. It was wonderful to see so many people out helping themselves with a little exercise, and helping each other. Shirley Ryan Ability Center says their patients travel “six times further” in a one-hour therapy session compared to other facilities. I remember from my rehab stay the first thing they do–after the basic rest, food, and hygiene routines–is help you get moving again. Everyday they helped me get up and walk. Sometimes we take it for granted, but moving under our own power is the first step in living our lives, determining our own destiny. It is good to see this happening on a community scale in a quintessentially American city such as Chicago. Really appreciate visiting dad there!

Traffic (people moving) is an artful choreography and public dance in a way, and being a part of it is how we relate to the world, and that felt good, getting along with all those Chicagoans and other visitors. There is something about walking especially that sets a level playing field. I also enjoyed the public art works such as murals I discovered on the ways. When people move through the world with grace and compassion it is very therapeutic. Good for the soul. Glad that place is set up for walking. It’s accessible for all.

“I realize my humanity in proportion as I perceive my reflection in the landscape that enfolds me.”  –N. Scott Momaday, Testimony, 1996.

After breaking my hip last year, what I found I missed so much was going outside and into the mountains on a bike ride. As soon as I could get back to it, I did. Being outside pedaling into the mountains I felt so grounded, back in touch with nature’s healing powers.

Cycling out of town and getting into the mountains is a joyful exercise. It’s almost like you’re re-establishing contact with sacred ground. Riding my bike into the mountain forest feels like I’m entering nature with a whisper, my own breathing the main sound, along with wind sifting through the trees. You tune into the dynamics of light. Your attention to nature is rewarded, the world sort of invites you in. It’s seductive.

In this calm you are startled by the bustle of nature! During a bike trip last Fall, deer appeared suddenly in the Aspen grove I had stopped to admire. But when I looked at them it seemed like they were always there, like all of eternity was present in that moment of quiet.

My doctor told me to “ride my bike like crazy” when he saw me for my six month check-up from the hip surgery. The circular motion of the pedal stroke works wonders for breaking down the scar tissue. My physical therapist told me I was doing a good job helping myself by riding my bike. It felt good to receive the encouragement, and also felt awesome to get out into mountains that overlook town and soak up that energy.

One of my friends sent this article from the NY Times about a photojournalist stuck at home during the pandemic. The photojournalist just started documenting his rides in the local landscape. “It’s brought home the truth that you don’t need to board a plane and jet off to the far side of the world to experience a sense of travel or the romance of difference. It lies waiting on your doorstep — if you look” (Roff Smith). “These images, though, aren’t meant to be about me. They’re meant to represent a cyclist on the landscape, anybody — you, perhaps” he goes on to say. One of the gifts of this pandemic is more people are finding the necessity of outdoor adventure and making it local, sustainable travel, that anyone can do. Wonderful! As someone once said, cycling is contagious.

“And when I push off down the street, the world becomes big again, the way it used to be when I was a child: rich in detail, ripe for discovery” (Roff Smith).

And so I pedal on, continually looking for the next adventure out my front door. Things are different now. I know how fast things can change. If anything, I appreciate cycling even more. Grateful for the healing and a return to wholeness, I keep looking for ways to open more doors for more people, so they can get grounded on the bike too.

When you get out there on the bike and pedal, you realize the world is more beautiful than you think. You have to experience it. Feel it. I am so grateful to have more cycling to do. My sincerest thanks to everyone who has helped me get back on my feet.

References:

“We want to create a community where we redefine what it means to be a cyclist, an inclusive and diverse community where people feel like they belong.” –Hilena Tibebe, New Yorkers are biking for black lives–and to end disparities in cycling, The Washington Post, August 26, 2020

“Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”  –Edward Abbey

I believe the activity of cycling itself is the best communication tool for advocating for cycling and all its benefits, the connections cycling builds to health, nature, and our communities.  Along the way I’ve realized we also need to do more than just ride.  We need to create structural support for cycling and related self-powered mobility activities such as walking and rolling devices such as wheelchairs.  We need to build safe, inclusive environments.  So in 2013 I dove into the holistic side of cycling advocacy, and was really surprised to learn that some people who were advocating for cycling were divided.  Some people say that cycling needs to be separated from other vehicular traffic, such as automobiles.  Other people, usually experienced cyclists who know to go anywhere you need to use the system that’s been designed to connect places–our streets and roads–you need to deal with other traffic.  I think this is a false divide, and I advocate for a dual pathways approach, meaning we can cycle on both separated paths and regular, inclusive streets and roads.  Cycling is diverse and versatile.

“Someone else doesn’t have to be wrong for you to be right.” –Aileen, a New Mexican cyclist

An important aspect of designing for human movement is focusing on where our travel paths come together.  The term we most often use for this is “intersections” but there are no intersections in nature.  Things flow together and there are relationships.  When we think about travel relationships we have to think about power disparities and relational equalities, and creating an encouraging environment for those that may feel disadvantaged.  The easiest or common way to think about this is manners–such as when someone is at a disadvantage for opening a door, whether it be they are pushing a baby stroller, carrying bags, or are older and more frail–we offer to open it for them.  For a lot of reasons we need to understand better, in our normalized travel environment of the public road, we sometimes forget our manners, and the more powerful users take their advantage.  This goes against our values.

We need to ‘reconfigure our social relations on a plane of equality so everyone can flourish.’ –Elizabeth Anderson, MacArthur Foundation fellow 2019

The secret is to respect each other.  This begins with uniting the cycling advocates, and probably is dependent on people who are cycling valuing themselves and their own activities. Self-trust.  Most of all we need a culture of encouragement where people feel safe and supported. Every person is a cycling advocate, since cycling is a public experience.  It is part of our shared world.

It helps me to empathize with what people are feeling and experiencing.  We need to improve safety on the road for cyclists and all travelers, so I empathize with people who prefer to cycle on multi-use trails and paths for safety reasons.  And for people who cycle on the road, we need safety improvements made for our sake too!  We have feelings and sensitivities!  We love life!

In reality most of us cycle on all kinds of facilities, from roads to trails.  They are not mutually exclusive. I like it all.  The key is to have a choice to be able to cycle where you want to, to feel free to do so, and to be inclusive.  Every single person can feel welcome to bicycle.

“That can be me.” –Hilena Tibebe in The Washington Post (link at top of this blog post)

Further reading:

This post discusses the safety problems that arise when we deal with bias (for certain transportation types, or “modes”) in street design, operations and public relations.
https://bikeyogi.com/2016/03/18/at-the-margin-of-safety/

“All of us” highlights unexpected unity we see in cycling
https://bikeyogi.com/2018/09/03/all-of-us/

“Home trails” touches on the empathy we experience when we tune in to others we meet on the trail. https://bikeyogiblog.wordpress.com/2019/10/31/home-trails/