Spirituality is very important my life. I consider myself a Jack pagan. You know, Jack Mormons are one thing. I’m a Jack pagan! A Jack Mormon is a Mormon who is outside of the church. I don’t like anything about Mormonism; I just use that term to call in another.

The spirituality I get comes from all that is around me. It emanates from each and every one of us but I am always drawn back to the natural world. There is something bigger than me out there; I just don’t know what it is.

Along those lines, I started training in the martial art aikido about the time that I turned 40. That’s also about the time I started surfing. When I’m sitting on a surfboard looking at the world around me I feel pretty spiritually connected.

Aikido can be a very spiritual experience; it’s a meditation of sorts. Beyond that I don’t have any strong beliefs or disbeliefs.

Aikido? We were on a Whitewater rafting trip on the middle fork of the Salmon River. It was a beautiful trip with beautiful weather, beautiful water, and beautiful people. I was reading a book, typical airport fiction kind of stuff…

Let me back up a step. It was a long drive in to the put-in point, about eight hours or so. One of my buddies mentioned aikido to me. I told him I knew nothing about it, but he told me that he thought it was something that I should look into. There was a woman in town who was one of the best instructors in the country.

On that trip I was reading this book and, sure enough, aikido shows up in the book. I remember thinking: “I’m listening…”

I told my friend about it and we laughed about it. I finished the book. On the same trip I was reading get another book and guess what… it showed up again!

“I’m listening. I hear you!”

When we got home I called the aikido school. The teacher answered the phone and we spoke for a while. I came and watch the class and decided to try it. That was almost ten years ago now.

A year later I was out of the country. I was working on it and other interesting job at the time. It was an active volcano, but we’ll get to that in a few minutes…

Bequia decided to check it out. She was into spirituality; she liked to meditate. I would come home from aikido practice talking about the spiritual side, the meditative side. It showed me a side of myself that I had never seen before, and it showed her the side of me that she had never seen either. I kind of always knew it was in there but I just never let it come to the surface very much, thanks to my scientific training. Big mistake.

While I was out of the country she went and took a six week beginning aikido course. When I came back, there she was, training in aikido!

Aikido came to me. I didn’t go looking for it. Things happen that way in life quite often. The things that we need the most find us if we are open to them.

Here in Todos Santos there is a very small aikido dojo. The American couple who have started to dojo have since split up and gone back to the United States.