Bike Rides and the "Book of Tiny Ideas"

Albert Hofmann was not looking for LSD. LSD found Albert Hofmann. The swiss chemist was looking for a chemical compound that would assist women in the birthing process. The synthesized chemical ended up getting on his hands, and then he went for one hell of a bike ride. Geometrical hallucinations, arabesques from the activated unconscious, and coronas of light probably came spilling out of Hofmann’s bamboozled mind. This bike ride was obviously a pioneering one. LSD went on to be extremely popular. The hippies of the sexual revolution lionized it. The US government purportedly used it in experimental tests on hapless soldiers.

Man is not looking for the bike trail. The bike trail finds Man. The twists and turns are already there. The tortuous route is like a magnet; it pulls the rider in. Man sometimes mistakenly thinks he is the trailblazer. This is erroneous. Man is not the doer. In actuality, the trail blazes Man. The tortuous pattern of the interconnecting forest trails writes Man into existence, moment-by-moment.

The forest is most pristine when there is no one else on the trail. Just spinning wheels and the sunlight that seeps in through the canopy. The intermittent breeze moves the arboreal ecosystem—it sways, sways, and sways. Somewhere on the other side of the oxbow river, a swamp is gurgling (no doubt a tirade about being too clogged all the time). Sometimes, when the propitious moment arrives, a deer can be seen grazing.

Spinning wheels. It feels great to be spinning those wheels.

While in Vancouver, I purchased a trinity of books. The books are tiny. The brown pages were empty. I think fragments of Sanskrit are on the books. I’ve decided to call one of the books, “Book of Tiny Ideas”. Page #2:

“The idea of time starts off small, and then grows larger and larger. The seed of time is in the mind, and the thoughts are watery. Don’t over-saturate a good thing.”

While riding a bike, it’s important not to water the seed of time too much. Too much thought-water turns time into a parasitic plant monster of gargantuan dimensions and proportions. The monster devours the trail. A little water produces a great flower. Time can be a great chrysanthemum, the form that holds “eternity in an hour”.

I don’t know what it was like for Albert Hofmann on that historical day, but I do know bike riding can be quite psychedelic. At the right speed, at the right juncture, the thoughts that bind the self fly away to the swaying branches and hang out for a spell.