Kyle Shipe: Surfing into Spirituality

While I was doing research for my paper, I came across some very interesting articles. One of these was "Surfing into Spirituality" by Bron Taylor. The article discussed how surfing can be a spiritual and sacred experience. It provided history on surfing and helped me understand some of its origins. I had not really thought about the religious side of surfing before, but Taylor's article helped me to truly grasp the religious aspect of surfing. It defined surfing as a way of life for some people. These people known as "soul surfers" live to surf and have a connection to the ocean that is sacred. I learned a lot from the article and was able to diversify my own thoughts on surfing. Taylor discusses the way that surfing can provide a spiritual healing to someone through use of the sublime. You can be so overwhelmed while riding a huge wave of cosmic energy that it causes you to feel extremely insignificant in some cases. The article was extremely fascinating and I would recommend it to any surfer.