Sheilaclapkin's Blog;

Recently there was a newsworthy video for television shown on an early summer morning. For a summer morning it was dull with a surprising inland fog. Instead of turning my chair to our buff side garden, I turned it to the television. It was lucky for me to be tuned in because at that moment, I saw a man riding the biggest wave in history.

As one ages, at any stage, there are ruts and pitfalls. You want to be able to help yourself out of the rut and avoid the pitfalls. I think if I learned how to ride a wave, the philosophies gaining that skill would move me up and out again. I would like your comments as well, but here is how I see it with my limited experience, no Internet and a blank page.

Certainly a pre-requisite to riding a wave would have to be learning or knowing how to swim.  Got that covered. Then, I assume you would have to learn how to approach the wave, a strategy you would employ each time you rode any wave.  I say any wave because not all waves are the same or come from the same direction.  You would have to begin an observation program and in observing you would understand and be better able to predict wave behavior. Predicting wave behavior, or any behavior is paramount to success anytime in your life.

In learning to ride a wave, technique is something to ponder. Here is where you will use your observation skills and watch other surfers. You will learn the art of observation and technique. You will spend much time reading about the waves, talking about the waves, learning where to be when the wave comes, how to use your eyes to help your position on the board and learning which side right or left depending on the kind of wave you will be encountering.  All of this observing, reading, talking, and predicting will prepare you with skills you will need to accomplish any task you set. Riding a wave is not the only task that requires the aforementioned skills, but rather life is a combination of skills and I do believe once you learn to ride a wave you will be more equipped to enter all phases of life.

I approached the learning how to ride waves topic because I think it will give me strategies for understanding, observation skills, balance, and the technique required will give most of us the confidence to face much of our life issues.   I think it will offer awareness, an acceptance, and a faith in gathering a new view. I know I will gain the love of truth and forgiveness for my inadequacies and this knowledge will help to fill in the holes. Studying how to ride a wave will gather a rectification for righteousness because of its purity, and its reality with nature. Realizing its fluidity will add grace.  My study will be purposeful and add a justification for existing.

Can I now ride a wave? Maybe or maybe not, but through the study of riding waves you and I can approach life with more self-reliance. Whether you or I ever ride a wave, is not the question or the answer. It is the skills we gain on the way, which is the art of essence.