We can choose another path. We can center our lives around interactions with our places – the real, physical world around us. Direct, full sensory experiences in local community and nature tap us into an intelligence broader, more complex, and more necessary than what we can find virtually.
Regularly connecting to place helps bring forth indigenous knowledge and wisdom that are critical to our ability to flourish as humans and as a society. True care for community and nature, upon which we depend to survive and thrive, requires being embedded in a place and knowing it directly and fully in daily life.
Biking is one means for building vital connections in the places where we live. This multisensory mode of getting around and how it benefits us emotionally, cognitively, and physically, similar to rolling and walking, is a signal from nature that we are in alignment.
I’m not suggesting that all we need to do is bike or that it’s always easy. Sometimes it’s cold (didn’t seem to bother the Copenhagen cyclists, though!) or wet. Construction activity and cars can be noisy. And people don’t always get along. On my ride in Copenhagen, I witnessed a verbal altercation between two riders who felt wronged by the other. Friction happens when we put ourselves out there. However, these experiences also help us learn, grow, and adapt.