Riding as Life, Skating as One

by Michael Smith

http://www.michaelsmithoneness.com/index.html

At 7:30 am on a crisp fall Sunday morning, I climb out of bed,
grab breakfast, gear up, and take my 47" Gravity Hyper-Carve
long board out for a ride. While the rest of the neighborhood
rests in the quiet as I prepare to connect to Life through my
board.

The crisp open air and red autumn morning sky create a feeling
of freedom and aliveness. I place my board next to the car and
begin with a couple of stretches to make sure the 41 year old
ankles don’t get injured. I then step onto the board and
whooosh, down the driveway into the street.

As I ride the soft green sector nine’s hum under my feet. The
sound of the rolling wheels becomes its own healing as I am
taken back to the first time I pushed off my Logan board with
new bright orange Kryptonics 25 years ago. Floating down the
hill I am turning and hovering over the pockets of air in
flight. My mind, worries and identity clear as I become the
dance taking place between myself and gravity flowing together
in a pre-written score. My audience is the cool breeze and the
sun that join in to color the dance with its silent songs. I
carry my board to the next hill... wheels still spinning.
While at the top I stop in the moment to reflect and enjoy the
buzz pelting through my body as I feel free.

What You Seek You Are

I move into the rest of hills riding on the waves of energy. I
crouch down low to connect and know the quiet wisdom of the
street as I am warmed by the concrete. My hands stretch and
drag ever so slightly on the cement as we touch and connect. I
soon stand to see my shadow floating as my companion dancing
along the ride with me as we move. The cool moisture from the
clouds wisp across the board sending circles of mini clouds
spinning behind me. I then turn at the bottom of the hill I
cruise through the fallen leaves on the outskirts of the road
dragging my fingers into them like a child. The scent of fall
along with the cool autumn air expands my awareness of
boundlessness. I am the autumn fall.

Anything That Follows “I Am” Becomes You

Time is lost. I am not a father, husband, worker, name or
person with past or future. I am not any problem, concern,
goal or illness. I am the edge of life as I place myself there
in each turn. This edge of life is where gravity, earth,
energy, meet, mix and become Life. I am Life as I float home
to greet more Life and allow the day to move through me.

How Skateboarding Balances the Body, Mind and Spirit

I have been a Reiki Teacher for 10 years. Reiki is universal
energy that is everything. Two years ago John Dillon of
www.skateparkofbaltimore.com re introduced me to the freedom I
left behind 20 years ago, and I purchased my first longboard.
Suddenly the energy and peace I found in meditation, Reiki,
and writing was coming across my board!

Skateboarding is an effective healing modalities and paths to
Oneness. On any ride we experience a relaxed body, calmed mind
and spiritual awareness. Tell me that bombing a hill and
carving into a turn is not a soulful expression. Also Grabbing
the bottom of the board and pulling back stretching across
inches above the earth in a whirlwind of speed.... that is
soul awareness. Words barely touch and can describe this
boundless freedom. But maybe the grin on our face expresses
the connection.

Skateboarding is being on the edge, its being the edge that
provides healing. The place of the edge causes us to lose.
They lose our name, identity, track of time, worries of the
future and past. To get to the edge requires nothing and cant
be forced. It’s the letting go in skateboarding that creates
the feelings of oneness with everything around us.

Miracles in Skateboarding

The amount of attention and physical requirements to maintain
balance and control also forces skaters to be in the present
moment of now. The present moment of now always exists, but we
fail to see it. Skating forces you to be in the now (for
safety first).

Then something amazing happens, you get to a point where you
are passing the torch or control over to the universe. You
start a run on your board and then lock into your groove. Its
being in this groove where you let life take you and you
connect to everything as everything. You control by letting
go... and that’s when your miracles happen... tricks come
through.... amazing unplanned rides happen... and you have fun
like a child. No thought, just doing.

These messages within skating allow us to grin in the work or
school day. We know that Oneness awaits on the other side of
our board. This connection continues even after the rides,
tricks and bombs by flowing as life and letting the universe
appear and disappear before us like the ride we just became.
Skating pretending to be not.

I had a difficult 24-hr workday yesterday, however, I took Dick Holmes
book of poetry "Recipes for Gratitude" with me, and between the
moments and movements of anger, grief, frustration, joy and bliss,
these poems emerged and converged:

i.

freedom is the
weightless drop of
a copper penny,
newly minted
falling on an
unforgiving summer pavement
bouncing sometimes
on a hot day,
as if its elemental joy
leaps
before it twirls on its
side, as if on fire
disappearing
from unwary eyes,
or holes in pockets,
to be found--
once again,
sometimes as if brand new...
more often than not
traceless
are the years,
remove all
misunderstood poems--
and the joy of luck,
oh lucky joy,
oh lucky life,

I have been found.

ii.

the will to be known
in the I-Eye of God
seeing him/herself
in the Oneness
of Self
belongs to no-one,
who will contemplate
everything
before reaching
the conclusion
of a solitary
lifetime

iii.

the familiarity of
this yearning
pound of flesh
rests
passionately at ease,
we are going
everywhere at once
only this consuming vibration
remains
for those who will
yet
to hear
an echo
a touch,
ecstasy's
eternal embrace
with their Beloved

iv.

if I lose myself
in your Poem,
Dear One,
let me be,
just
let me be
guide your loving hands
should ever I return
from this sublime
intoxication, this
divine insignificance

v.

Love, how long
you have hidden
yourself in me!
I have only
useless maps now
I have nowhere
to go
where you are not
I see only your
map, Love,
layered in proximity
and revelation

vi.

time
will blow out this
song
of my life
my soul will
have melted its
flame,
the distance
between
the pristine light
melting like a
candle in the dark.

vii.

how do you
touch an angel
without
being touched
by humanity?
where does
the struggle to
be free
form in the
seeds of duality?
When can a
living soul
fly?
Where is Home?

viii.

if only I had
just one more
turn
of the sun
from night into day

If only I had
just
one more
phase of the moon
turning
in all its faces

if only I had
just one more
year
to return the eclipse
of my heart

if only
I had some
only left

ix.

several
incarnations later
Adi Da says:
"We are left in the paradox
of enjoyment in which only
Dissolution exists." .... or words
to that effect...

several incarnations of Anna
later
I rest
comfortably numb
in his words
balanced
on the sharpest edge
freefalling
into oblivion...


Love To All,
All To Love,

Anna

Ah, the great emptiness! Quieting the mind, extricating it from its affair with its fickle mistresses, the senses, is another way to experience original context, spiritual reality. The great empty field of existence. The beauty of holding it in our minds is that it fills us with the context, the experience of total non-duality, oneness. Unfortunately, words cannot describe direct spiritual experience, so I won’t dishonor it any further. Know that humility, meaning, dynamism, amongst all other truths and wisdom are revealed to the quiet mind. — Brandon Peele

found at http://thistimethisspace.com/2007/06/05/meditation-the-quiet-mind/

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