Samsara

I have, somewhere, already written of the nirvanic act of cycling, and the possibility of an awakening through the simple motion of pedalling and breathing. Yet, although I was aware of the etymology of the word nirvana (coming from Sanskrit nir [to negate] + vana [the wind]), I only discovered yesterday that the source of the word Samsara is sam- (the prefix denoting completeness, from where we get 'same') + sr- 'to run, to glide' from the Proto-Indo-European root ser- to flow. 

How pleased I was to find this I cannot tell you, for I have been writing of the 'Great Flow' for some time now, whether in my poems, my cycling, or simply through watching seagulls and their feathered brethren. Indeed, the word flow (as well as their conjugates, flower, flourish, float and fly) has been on my mind for some time now. It is the one word that I would pick if I had to choose a single word to describe cycling (or living). It is also, I believe, the one verb that man has most lost touch with, the rhythm of living, and the uninterrupted fluency of the universe. Within the rush and roar of modern life, the human has become man and lost this flow, and by extension, his cosmic capacity. He has also, this modern mutation of a human, lost the possibility to flower and flourish, since the flow pre-supposes this. If one does not flow, one cannot flower.

It is to this end that H.G. Wells writing nigh on a hundred years ago, wrote that cycle tracks would abound in Utopia...

When people start cycling as a way of life and not just as a means of getting somewhere, man will recollect his humanity, and his cosmic capacity, and be aware of the cyclicality of all life, matter, and existence...

As a great black-backed seagull once screeched to me: To cycle is to cycle....!