Tumbling, deep under water and surrounded in bubbly white and grey fizz, oxygen ran out. Photo: Mark Tipple
There is nothing more empowering than losing everything. Hitting rock bottom, when everything that doesn’t matter evaporates, you find that the little light blinking in the vast darkness of your world is the fire of your true natural self.
We, the wave sliding tribe, are lucky to experience this natural sense of self every time we paddle out into the surf. The thrill of riding a wave of energy in our oceanic liquid universe temporarily disconnects our relationships with things, outcomes and people. All that which we have to be, need to be, or want to be in our lives on land is irrelevant once we feel the rush of riding a wave.
I believe it is this disconnection from our world on terra firma that gives us surfers that sense of freedom. Riding a wave, just at the time where its energy transforms from a water wave into sound waves and vibrations as it breaks on the shallows, is where the magic is. These moments, where energy changes form, the moment in between life and death, right there where time does not exist, are the moments of pure joy we live for.
Somewhere between Life and Death is where I found me.
While surfing the North Shore waves of Hawaii, a freak wave loomed out of the vast deep blue. Trapped, and with no way out, tons of oceanic power unleashed itself on me. Tumbling, deep under water and surrounded in bubbly white and grey fizz, oxygen ran out.
Sheer panic, surrender, followed by serene peace. Floating in light blue, image by happy image, the joyful moments of life slid by. An inner smile filled my body with joy, as if to give it its last joyride before death. And so existence as I knew it ceased. Out of time, out of life, yet aware and present. Me, but not embodied.
Aware of now, but nowhere here. Blackness…light.
And then I surfaced, miraculously floating on my board, breathing, crying, laughing, reembodied. The world has never been the same since.
I used to think it was the water that was moving when waves travel towards shore. Like the ripples created by a stone in a pond, it is the energy of the impact that travels, not the water itself.
What if my body is like water and I am the wave? How could I be aware and outside my body that day?
What is it in us that makes the sense of ‘me’ intrinsically ‘me’? What if I can live life as the wave? Carrying on, without fail, without hesitation, without delay, as each conducting environment changes?
How would we experience change in our circumstances? How much quicker would we adapt, and therefore benefit from that which is new? How much less shall we have to fear and stress about the unpredictable, and the unexpected? How good would that be? Indeed, how good would that be?
