Night ride to Yarra Glen

Marlon and I have been enjoying winter night rides of late.  Tonight we did a 120km loop out to Yarra Glen.  It was very dark and cold, it was raining heavily, and the fog was thick.  And we had a great time. After passing some particularly large (for this area) kangaroos I slowed down to 45kph in some stretches.  We arrived at Yarra Glen at 10PM and had coffee at the pub.

It was a lot of fun.  The twisting roads there and back had a romantic aura as our headlights beamed into the dense fog.  I was a little anxious at times due to the slippery road surface, the kangaroos, and the fact that my front tyre is balding, but I rode with all the caution and skill appropriate to the conditions.  Knowing that beyond this there was nothing more I could do to secure my fate, I engaged in my usual motorcycling 'spiritual practice' of:

(i) responding to any negative or challenging situation in a spirit of acceptance, while

(ii) giving attention - despite the awareness also of the negative - to what is good in the experience, to what is unique, wonderful, worthy of gratitude, pleasant.  Or, where it is hard to find these, to the gift simply of the opportunity to affirm in action and spirit that I am bigger than the fears or set-backs I encounter.

So while, because my bike felt slippery and I feared collision with a roo, I felt some anxiety about the present moment as I rode along, at the same time I chose to give attention to the beauty, the mystic romanticism, of this moment of being on my motorcycle in a quiet place in a a magic mist.