Kansas Horizons and the Windy Ocean Ride

      Living in Kansas, one thing there is a lot of is wide open sky and flat land. Below is a picture from one of my long bike rides in northeastern Kanas. By bike I mean bicycle, a mountain bike really but I use it on the road a lot. Being between earth and sky, feeling the wind push and pull you, which is a constant daily moving force in the Kaw River Valley; gives one a feeling of connection with the earth. A peace found in the spirit and body, a kind of calm as you look over the horizon and see nothing but endless earth and endless sky. I have felt this same feeling being in the ocean and looking at the horizon, and feeling the waves push and pull. Here it is the wind that pushes and pulls, and the ocean in any direction is at least 12 hours away.
      I used to fight the wind when I started taking long bike rides, foolishly cursing and shaking my fist at it as if it would respond or correlate to such a small meaningless being like myself. The wind does not listen to me or anyone else, it is a great equalizer. It's ever shifting invisible energy pouring over every animal in the same degree, more or less, depending on where you stand on the earth in any given moment. In Ken Burns' film about The Dust Bowl (which ravaged farmland with endless tidal waves of dust and wind in the 1930's) they speak of this same kind of - bending one's self to the will of the wind, the wind will of course never bend it's will to yours, thus the wind is the great equalizer.

"For what is it to die, But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind,"

-Kahil Gibran 

Photo: Ed Tajchman 2015, © all rights resrved.