(I didn’t say *only* food, did I?)

When I got a garden near my house, I stopped going to the community garden space I’d been frequenting. I’d started living closer to home, and biking to the grocery store and the coffee shop I like to work in, but nothing regular like that three-times-a-week trip to the garden.? And I started to notice something was missing from my life.

That trip to the garden involved a nice stretch of bike path. I don’t know about where you live, but my bike path goes along the beautiful Willamette (pronounced will-AM-it, believe it or not). Trees, grass, flowers, laughing people, curious babies, and water… I love water! It feels like the stuff my soul is made of (of course I know my soul is made of love-energy… but do I have to choose?).

So I decided to make it a point to ride on the bike path anyway. Who says I have to take the most direct route? It’s amazing how many questions have this same answer: Follow your heart. Follow the love.

This morning I wanted to head off to the store to get my grown kid some food to take for the day. It was cool, the air was crisp and moist, but not wet or rainy. I loved the feeling of the air on my skin, and the world moving past at a speed I can relate to. (That’s one of my favorite things about biking.)

As a car passed me on my quiet street, I remembered my zen teacher telling us once, with a laugh, how it’s really cool when firetrucks go by when you’re meditating. “I love that. It rocks!” It’s only a problem, really, if you are attached to something like your vision of what “quiet” is, or what “focus” is. But doesn’t real presence accept what is?

So I count this as meditation. I watched my breath, watch the sound of tires on road, watch the rush of a car passing, watch the fog hovering, like it was trying to decide whether to evaporate or condense. Just watched.