Ride the Waves
{A Written Practice}
Surfing
Is there a better practice to teach us how to ride the waves of life?
Is there a better analogy for life than surfing? The waves keep coming, continuously. They come in patterns, in sets, they change size. They’re ever-dynamic, and the most useful thing is to bring your full attention, your full embodiment, and all of your sense of balance to riding them. Surfing as exercise, and surfing as metativity. You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to ride them.
I’m not a good surfer yet, but I’ve done it some. When you are learning to surf, a good part of getting up is about timing. You need to identify the wave that you want catch, and you need to be oriented properly in it, which generally means facing towards shore. As it begins to approach, you start to paddle furiously on your board, to get momentum, and there is a magical moment when the wave swells underneath and begins to take you. You jump your knees up and pop into position, and then you are riding the wave. Because I don’t any real skill as a surfer, it is the metativity of this practice that I can speak to most usefully, because lining up with the waves that are coming, and then paddling with them, is what is required to ride the wave. If you fight it, if you resist, it will simply wash over you. With a small wave, you'll miss it. With a big wave, this is dangerous. There is something for those of who have the illusion that we are in control to learn here. The work, when you are at play with forces larger than you (like the universe) is to learn to harmonize, to learn to accept, to learn to surrender and to align. Learning this on a wave is a joy in and of itself, and it prepares you for life.
Also, there’s little more peaceful than sitting on a surfboard, fifty yards out from the crashing surf, on a warm day, in warm water, being rocked by the waves, your legs dangling in the blue, the sky azure, seabirds whirling overhead. It’s hard not to feel alive in such a context. And everybody knows, Hawa’iians, Californians, and Brasillians are the coolest. Could it be because they are all surf cultures? Just sayin’.
Related Practices:
Elemental practices in water, such as Stand Outside in a Storm, and Hydrate, and Living Water. Movement practices, such as Qi gong and Stretching and Dance.Photography: | Licensed from Pexels.com, used with permission.