The Spirituality Of Diving

[highlandfarmwv]

Amen.

 

[scubaren]

There are times when the spirituality of diving almost overwhelms me.

Hovering in the water column, a completely alien environment envelops me.

Weightless, with sounds coming seemingly from only one direction... blasts of air bubbles floating upward, creatures completely alien to me living out their lives right in front of my eyes...

There are times when I just close my eyes for a few seconds and float... float in a way that I cannot anywhere or any when else...

I lose myself in the experience, and for the short time that air and NDL allows, I live in a world that few others see... and I think a world that some who do SEE it don't really FEEL it.

The cares of the world wash away, and the entire universe becomes elemental. Only the most basic of needs, air, need be met... everything else can wait for a while I am away on an inner vacation to my own private universe.

There are times outside of diving that I feel things in a somewhat similar way... I am a cyclist, and there are times when you are riding a bike that the world just melts away. Pro bike riders call these 'no-chain days' where it feels like riding is effortless. Many is the time that I have been riding along, look around and realized I am already reaching my destination... I think, wow, this is 15 miles further than the last time I noticed, how on Earth did I get here?

Also when cycling, there are days when nothing seems to fit right. You can't find your groove and you just seem like you are 'slogging' all day long.

I am inexperienced enough at diving that this happens to me as well, especially if I haven't been in the water for a couple of weeks... it takes a while to get back in the groove again, at least for me at this stage of my development as a diver.

I can also get into a "constant state of being" while shooting pictures, and can look up and find that I have lost hours of the day while working to get the shots just right... or while waiting for the animal I am shooting to do what I want it to do. I can lose hours as well standing in front of great works of art (once I stood so long in front of Caravaggio's St. John the Baptist that the museum guard came over and asked if I was OK) and in a good book.

But none of that really compares to diving. Diving is different. I think it may be, literally, the total emersion into a different world that transports my spirit... the exotic and alien nature of the sea, swimming along as if I actually belonged there, at least for a little while.

There are no bills to pay under the sea, there are no phones to ring, there are no expectations or pressures other than those of the most basic needs we have... make sure we can breath, and make sure we can continue breathing.

Obviously, one must pay attention while diving, that's not what I am saying... you can stay alert to what you are doing and still be lost in the spirituality of the moment (rather like riding a bike... you have to pay attention to actually peddling, looking out for cars, potholes, glass, etc., but that doesn't mean you can't be "in the groove").

The spirituality of diving doesn't (for me at least, your mileage may vary) have anything to do with religion, it is more about finding new ways to feel alive... to BE alive.. and it is yet another reason to be thankful that we were given another day to live on a wonderful planet and in a time where such things are possible

I haven't been diving long, and I am hoping that my sense of wonder and awe of the shear unworldlyness of being alive under water doesn't go away any time soon.

Somehow, I suspect that I will never outgrow the spirituality of diving...

I want some of what you are smoking!

 

[Sas]

There are times when the spirituality of diving almost overwhelms me.

I experience the same on all my dives but to a much greater extent when I am diving alone. There are few things in life that compare to the experience of diving for me at least.

 

[SouthSideScubaSteve]

As I read this thread, I realized that that there is a single word that captures what is the essence of diving for me...

/grok/, /grohk/ (From the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word meaning literally "to drink" and metaphorically "to be one with")

Note: from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, ¼« 1993-2007 Denis Howe

 

[Darcey]

"From birth man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders ... But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free. Buoyed by water, he can fly in any direction up, down, sideways by merely flipping his hand. Underwater, man becomes an archangel." Jacques-Yves Cousteau

PS - I think he meant women too.

I'm not exactly Cousteau's greatest fan but I'll definitely drink to that.

It doesn't matter where I'm diving...in the ocean, lake or cold quarry...I can't help but think about how lucky I am to be diving and how relaxing it is to get away from the real world and how amazing it is see what's going on below the surface. It really is like a spiritual experience every time.