Page 147 - THE ENDLESS WAVE | Skateboarding, Death & Spirituality

THE ENDLESS WAVE | PART TWO
Skateboarders and Sacred Space
What do you think of when you think of sacred space? A place of wor- ship like a church or temple? A place that is designated specifically for its visitors to commune with the Divine? What does it mean for a place to be sacred? All spaces in the environment are sacred and go beyond the common perspective of a place being sacred only by its boundaries and the officials that designate it to be so.
Can the Divine only be experienced inside a particular place? Or is it that the Divine is experienced within, around and beyond the confines of a location? Like skateboarding, can you only skate in the skatepark or does skateboarding offer you freedom and exploration of a world beyond something that has been built for the specific purpose of skating?
Taking on this perspective allows us to become more aware of our surround- ings and develop a greater appreciation for them. While it is a nice gesture and place of community, there are many similarities between practicing at a communal, purpose built environment for skateboarding and religious as- pects of life. With what you develop and build, ideally are things that you learn, assimilate into your body, brain and lifestyle and take with you to serve the world and the streets, be it that lesson from the lecture or reading or that trick that you spent hours practicing.
141