elements in relationship to culture and Art. Water, a fundamental necessity for surf, is full of rich meaning on both a physical and a spiritual level. The relationship between a surfboard the surfer and the water has an abstract as well as a literal
significance. A wave on its own is a thing of beauty that when contemplated can stir the imagination and lead one into realms of thought where the ancients still dwell.
The movements of a surfer and a wave together unite into a wordless song inspiring emotion and passion.
The unique chemical compound which is water has always held a special place in the hearts of humanity, not just because our bodies are mostly water and we desperately need it for survival, but for its many uses and the lessons we may learn from it. All religions recognize the importance of water and most incorporate it into cultural rituals that attempt to give meaning to our existence. The cycles and
behavior of water from prehistoric times to today are one of the greatest shapers of the
world’s topography and anthropology. Thus water plays a central role in culture all over the planet and its importance is so basic that even a toddler can understand it.
There’s a tribe of people that live in the in the Andes mountains of Columbia whose ancestors were the Incas. They retreated into the mountains hundreds of years ago to avoid cultural annihilation during the Spanish inquisition. Wade Davis of National Geographic gives an inspiring cultural talk about these people and other cultures on the brink of extinction. What is so interesting about these people is their intense relationship with nature and their natural environment. When a child is born he is taken to a high mountain were he lives in the confinements of a camp until he is eighteen years old. During this time the outside world is only an abstraction which is discussed with its spiritual relevance. When the young adult leaves the camp at eighteen and sees the mountains and valleys that are his heritage he has a profound understanding of their relevance and importance, they are not mounds of dirt waiting to be logged and mined but are spiritual beings with gifts and a beauty immeasurable.
His relationship with the landscape is a loving caring relationship as natural and hospitable as that of a mother and child. These are a people so in tune with nature that they can distinguish between flora not only by sight but also by sound. And of course water is part of their everyday diet but there are also holy springs and watering holes where the barefooted tribes must wash their feet in ritual before climbing a
sacred mountain. When they return to sacred prayer grounds and find the valley’s forest and meadows replaced with high rise brothels they can only wonder why. These people call themselves the elder brothers and refer to all others as younger brothers because we do not understand what we do. They pray daily for our souls and for the land and water that our cultures are destroying.18 If only we could understand as these people do that all things are rooted in the same creation, and just as a man has a soul related to his creator so is a mountain stream or an ocean a spiritual being with a life of expression and fragile gifts for all to behold.
There is a tradition in Christian churches of holy water, and most churches practice some sort of baptism. The Catholic priest flicks the holy water over his congregation, and babies’ heads are dampened with the blessed substance. At Lea’s Chapel in Valley Head Alabama the congregation meets up at a neighboring farm and people wade out to the preacher who stands in a creek with water up to his belly button. He says a prayer, holds their noses, and takes them under the water for a couple of seconds while the cows look on with interest but no surprise. The ritual of baptism to some may seem silly and meaningless but it actually has a cultural heritage and significance that one could trace back to ancient times and can find semblances of
in almost every culture across the globe. In India the Ganga River is believed to be a goddess and a dip in its waters is a ritual not unlike baptism where the sins are washed away and the soul is purified. The story of Ganga and Shiva is an ancient story of creation, in reading it one would be impressed that if a body of water doesn’t have a soul it is at least a divine element to be treasured and respected.
The story of the great flood that covered the earth in Ancient times can be read in the book of Genesis but also has parallels in many of the mythologies of cultures world wide, and can be seen in the architecture of some aboriginal tribes on the islands off the coast of north Sumatera. High in the mountains people don’t live in houses, they live in beautifully carved boats raised up on stilts as if they are waiting for the waters to rise and carry them away to a new homeland.19 These people are related in language and custom to the navigators of Polynesia who know over a hundred stars in the night sky by name, and can perceive the presence of islands beyond the horizon by the ripples on the water and the changes in surface currents.
At any given time they can recognize up to thirty different forces of swell and current acting on their canoes as they navigate hundreds of miles between islands
distinguishing major and minor ocean currents from surface turbulence and ground
19 In 2001 on a surf trip to Nias and Similu, small islands off the north western side of Sumatera, I observed the culture and boat shaped architecture of the local tribes.
swells.20 Perhaps these navigators with there continued focus and study of the sea have come to understand it as a spiritual being with a divine personality. The story of the great flood not only seems to link all peoples culturally but also suggest a
relationship between water and divinity.
The personality of water lends itself easily to spiritual lessons and is often found in the teachings of Eastern philosophers. Somewhere between twenty five hundred and three thousand years ago there lived a man named Lao Dz, the father of Daoism.
A central metaphor in Old Long Ears’ wu wei philosophy is water. Wu Wei has been translated as “non action,” but maybe is better translated as without a set path or going with the flow. The Dao is always changing and can never be named or described it is like water without color or form, you can cradle it but when you try to hold it tight it runs away. The nature of water is humble, always seeking the lowest point. It is soft and giving yet with time it will cut through stone and carve mountains into canyons.
Professor Du teaches Chinese calligraphy. Many of his notes and presentations attempt to communicate the philosophies of Lao Dz and Jrwang Dz in relation to art and calligraphy. As he compared the soft paint brush loaded with ink and the stiff
paper laid on a solid table top, so one could also think of the soft water of the ocean adjacent to the stiff board of the surfer. The Yin and the Yang, the male and the female, all things are better defined when compared to their opposites. Light is most visible in the darkness. If one turns on a bright flashlight at noon on a sunny day the light will seem dim, but if the day is turned to night the light may be dazzling. The relationship of opposites is a powerful one that is important to an artist in terms of understanding differences which will effect a composition. To a surfer the soft water and the stiff board can create a movement of lifting and falling in a circular motion like the symbol of the Yin and the Yang so that the relationship between one and the other creates an energy that is not possible when the two are separated.