Page 121 - THE ENDLESS WAVE | Skateboarding, Death & Spirituality

THE ENDLESS WAVE | PART TWO
The Halfpipe of Grief
What is grief? As an emotion, it is commonly experienced during a time of loss. It’s common to associate grief with what we have come to know as death and it is the kind of emotion that can affect people in many different ways. Usually those experiencing grief find their way to pro- cess the range of emotions that can be felt during this time and those observ- ing the grieving tend to watch from afar and be unsure of what to say or do. It’s a very personal experience that requires something different, yet some- thing similar.
While we have already explored the nature of the Soul and the Body and life after death, grief affects all of us, there’s no denying about that. It doesn’t matter how spiritual you consider yourself to be. It’s part of our Human na- ture to explore and express our full range of emotions, grief included. Some- thing that we are collectively learning to do, is learn to support each other and express grief in healthy ways and perhaps the way to do this, is to un- derstand that grief has different stages and requires something different at each time.
For me personally, it’s through skateboarding and its connections to a diverse range of people that I’ve experienced, felt and observed the most instances of death, dying and grief so I’d like to explore grief itself through the metaphor of skating a halfpipe.
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