The weather forecast for Ireland on Friday 24 April was for a warm, sunny, and dry conditions and that’s the way it turned out to be as Met Éireann, The Irish Meteorological Service, reported a maximum temperature of 19.4oC from the weather station in my hometown of Mullingar, County Westmeath. As this was one of the hottest days we had experienced this year I wanted to reap the full benefits by getting back cycling.
A 25 kilometre E-Bike tour of Nature Trails and Salgados Natural Park in the sunny Algarve during my holiday there in March had whetted my appetite for pedaling and I had no excuse for not doing so with access points to scenic off-road cycling amenities like the Royal Canal and Old Rail Trail greenways on my doorstep.
Cycling, along with running, gives me significant health benefits, improving my fitness and mental wellbeing, helping me to be calm, positive, and relaxed. For a few weeks now I had targeted getting out for a leisurely spin on the Old Rail Trail and I was determined to go as far as Jack’s Stop Café at Streamstown Station which is 16.7 kilometres from the start of the greenway in Mullingar.
As I set off at lunchtime and took the rural roads from home before accessing the greenway at the village of Ballinea, I gave myself permission to switch off from the busyness of my week and too much time immersed on screens. Instead I tried to switch my attention to forward pedaling in the radiant splendour of the sun. This was ‘me’ time away from worries, stress and ruminations, a time for self-encouragement, positivity and motivation.
The Old Rail Trail is 43 kilometre greenway, linking the towns of Athlone and Mullingar that runs alongside the historic Midlands Great Western Railway track. This off-road shared pedestrian and cycleway trail is a rural route through through the heart of the Irish Midlands that navigates over gentle slopes, through stone-arched bridges, and alongside restored platforms and station houses.
I always feel safe cycling on this greenway and it gives me a sense of freedom as I pedal along through the sheltered countryside, surrounded by farmsteads and homesteads, and a great array of trees, areas of biodiversity and birdsong. I sometimes imagine the bustling activity of the railway in bygone days, and then I return to the present moment, noticing how the repetitive forward movement of my pedaling is leading me to contemplation and stillness for the soul.
My recent cycle in the sun was a self-care practice. I used my energy in a positive way and the consistent rhythm of my pedaling created a stress-relief response akin to meditation. While ruminations about the past came into my mind, the gift of movement gave me an alternative focus—it brought my awareness to the present moment and to the stillness of nature by listening to and observing the signs of creation all around me, and as a result I become open to something greater than myself.
I found that cycling could also be a spiritual practice when I became more conscious of God’s presence in the very midst of nature, and slowed down my thoughts by gently breathing in and out using the four syllables of the Breath Prayer Ma-ra-na-tha [Come Lord Jesus]. In those attentive moments of noticing the beauty of nature and coming to a deeper awareness of my breathing, I found I could connect with God, as I was, in the cathedral of the world, and ask him for healing for my physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds.
When I stopped at Streamstown Station I locked up my bike and took with me my phone, my lunch and a book I had brought with me ‘A New Earth: Create A Better Life’ by Eckhart Tolle. I had planned and intended to have some reflection time at the half-way point of my cycle and dipping in and out of this book, I had found helpful, from both a self-care and spiritual perspective.
The lovely staff at Jack’s Stop Café looked after me well and I ordered tea, water, and an ice-cream as a treat, and sat outside in the sun. Just allowing myself to rest, relax and be refresed by the glorious weather provided nourishment for my body and soul. My food and drink replenished my body while my time of reading and reflection soothed my soul by reflecting on the reality of my life and what really matters.
Clannad came up on my playlist on Spotify, followed by a song from the late Moya Brennan ‘Show me the Way‘. I was particularly struck by the lyrics of this song’s chorus
Show me the way where I belong
Please show me the way to find you
Show me the way to hear your song
Listening to this song brought me comfort and consolation, and the words became my mantra to God, a prayer of intercession in relation to my search in life. I asked for God’s Holy Spirit to ‘show me the way where I belong‘. My quiet time of stillness and reflection renewed my faith and the belief that my role is to listen, be patient and pray.
God has shown me many times in my life how he always provides. I felt that the profound grace of my self care day was the clarity of vision I felt, through the Holy Spirit, about my purpose in life; the mission that I have to use my gifts of service, communication and evangelisation to share the Good News of the Catholic faith, and part of that mission is to witness about my life on this blog.
When I picked up ‘A New Earth’ and read the chapter ‘The Pain-Body’, it helped augment this perspective on my life and my purpose in the world around me. Ultimately what matters most to me is connecting with my Christian values, the theological virtues of faith, hope and love; that is where my authenticity and truth comes from. I can see now, looking back on my life, that through my Christian initiation and adult formation, I was being equipped for a deeper knowledge of the Catholic faith and a personal experience of Christ.
Striving to stay close to Jesus is the only way that I can embrace my sufferings, battle against Satan and the reality of the devil in the world; and focus on trying to be a sincere and committed Christian. I acknowledge also the help of medicine in helping me to stay well and God has worked through the various mental health practitioners who have helped me manage my Bipolar Disorder by making positive lifestyle choices such as exercising regularly and keeping stress to a minimum.
Many of the recovery programmes I have completed work through the practice of Mindfulness—thst is being embodied in the present moment rather than being overly caught up in the past or the future. In this context, reading the teachings of Eckhart Tolle reminded me that while the past will always live in me as memories; I can break the habit of dwelling on it by focusing my attention on Jesus, returning to the Breath Prayer Ma-ra-na-tha. By calling on name of Jesus I am lifted up from my depression and I can look forward in my life towards where my dreams lead, towards where I really want to be.
People with heavy pain-bodies usually have a better chance to awaken spiritually than those with a relatively light one. Whereas some of them do remain trapped in their heavy pain-bodies, many others reach a point where they cannot live with their unhappiness any longer, and so their motivation to awaken becomes strong. Why is the suffering body of Christ, his face distorted in agony and his body bleeding from countless wounds, such a significant image in the collective consciousness of humanity? Millions of people, particularly in medieval times, would not have related to it as deeply as they did if something within themselves had not resonated with it, if they had not unconsciously recognised it as an outer representative of their own inner reality—the pain body. They were not yet conscious enough to recognise it directly within themselves, but it was the beginning of their becoming aware of it. Christ can be seen as the archetypal human, embodying both the pain and the possibility of transcendence.
Page 143-144, A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle, Penguin Random House UK, 2016.
