The Tao of Surfing

The Tao of Surfing

It starts with the never-ending search for the perfect wave, the perfect ride. As some come to call it the "A" frame. Surfing is the Gung Fu of the water, the style by which someone chooses to live. It directs the way they think and feel, how they lead their lives, the life of the surfer.
Surfers learn to surf on or off the water. They climb the highest peak in search of a rush they can only fulfill on the water, and yet the water is within them always. The ocean is constantly calling them for another ride.
The surfer accepts the challenge and enters the water asking for so little but expecting so much. They paddle for what seems like days as the ocean bombards them with wave after wave. This game is not for the weak. But as we all know the surfer has come prepared trained in both mind and body and is ready to accept that which is thrown his way. Then before you realize it you've made it to the outside break and you sit upon your throne as the waves humble underneath you.
As the surfer watches his paradise beneath him he knows that his moment of greatness has yet to come as the oceans builds its power to present him with his greatest challenge. As the waves grow he waits and waits for the one to call his name. Then before he can think twice and quiver at the awesomeness before him he paddles. The wave must be his the time has come.
As he feels the board lighten he stands to greatness and witnesses the awesome power that stands beneath him and begins to tower over him. Yet the surfer does not falter for time is his, the world seems to slow to a crawl, as he becomes master of his domain. He becomes one with the ocean and together they create a dance that when witnessed by those few graced by its presence is breath taking. Here the surfer is truly in paradise.
Yet those who fall and are thought to be consumed by the ocean they so respect and desire are not lost. They are in turn given the greatest ride any surfer could ever be given. They are swept into the oceans loving arms and given the gift of the eternal wave, a wave so perfect that those who ride it are truly blessed. As was once said we must all return to that from which we came.
Those surfers that I speak of are never truly gone but always just a wave away. Watching the dance that we create. Protecting the paradise that we hold so dear. They are now the perfect waves beneath our boards and together we ride eternally.
This is dedicated to all the surfers who have been given the gift of the eternal wave and especially to my best friends Aeneas and Julie Hernlen. Who have not as some say ridden their last wave, but who now ride the best wave.

LTL DRG