"And so I cut, moving my hips in rhythm to the arc of the scythe’s swing, shuffling forward bit by bit, nibbling away at the foot-long grass..."

"... and depositing it on my left. I concentrate on keeping the blade in touch with the ground. It’s a dance of sorts. The dance of the mower and the grass. Tolstoy understood the satisfactions of this work. In 'Anna Karenina,' Levin joins the peasants to harvest the hay on his estate. His brother scoffs, but Levin is soon absorbed in his labors: 'The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness of its own, and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and well finished of itself. These were the most blissful moments.' Working slowly and deliberately, with little noise, allows me to be part of nature, rather than striving against it...."

From "The Russian Peasant’s Workout" by Jeremy Hastings (in The NYT).