Sangha of Auspicious Companions

The Joy of Wind in Your Hair

John Seigel-Boettner pedals a trishaw through Santa Barbara with 97-year-old Elizabeth Wright seated upfront, her thin hands clutching a blanket as the ocean glints ahead and decades momentarily collapse — she is celebrating birthdays on the beach, alive in motion rather than memory. What began as one Danish man’s response to watching his father’s world shrinking has become Cycling Without Age, a movement spanning 50,000 volunteers across 41 countries, built on the radical premise that mobility is dignity and that “the right to wind in your hair” shouldn’t expire with age. Studies confirm measurable gains in happiness and social connection, yet the deeper alchemy happens in what Seigel-Boettner calls “the bubble where magic happens” — that unhurried space where a pilot becomes companion, a diagnosis dissolves back into personhood, and both pedaler and rider discover they’ve been equally transformed. “Society is missing a bridge between older people and everyone else,” he says, tapping the trishaw frame, and what he’s really tapping is the paradox at the heart of all caregiving: we think we’re giving, but we’re the ones coming back changed. The program doesn’t solve social isolation so much as refuse its premise — insisting that being seen, feeling wind, sharing stories across generations remains possible until the very end.

Be The Change

Volunteer at a local senior center or participate in a community service that connects different generations.