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Surfi Tales

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The 2nd Set ...

The Elements of Nature

Editorial - Gettin' wet & paddling out into the LineUp
Intro - Earth, Water, Air, Fire and the EcoSystem
Article 1 - Elements of Living Nature - the Heart & the Mind
Article 2 - A Treck into the Mineral Kingdom - Journey Onward
Article 3 - The Shamrock Surfi Tales - The Book of SunShine
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia

Editorial Commentary

G'Day

Glad you could make it ...

Welcome to the second set of Surfi Tales:
The Elements of Nature

While the first set of stories related to the Spirit of Surfing, and the nature of the ocean waves and the culture which has emerged from its planetary birthplace in the ancient kingdoms in the midst of the Pacific Ocean, and the islands of Hawaii, this second edition will focus upon the Elements of Nature. For the surfing culture is young amidst the ancient cultures of our world, yet - because of its attachment to the ocean and the world of nature - the peoples of the surfing culture can more likely understand what is about to be written ...

And we might enquire after the nature of the world, so that we might understand and enjoy its qualities to their fullest:

Of what is the world made?

Democritus (460-370 BC), who was believed to have travelled widely, and to have studied the Pythagorean traditions, is often accredited with first considering the existence of, and certainly the indivisibility of, the atomic structure of the world. The discipline of physics - from the greek physis (nature) - since early times in the history of the Western culture, has been the name given to the study of nature - to the study of natural phenomena; of the world and of the cosmos. Now that the theory of Democritus has been vindicated by the harnessing of atomic energy, and the Periodic Table of the Atomic Elements of matter has been explained by quantum electrodynamics, and scientific research moves progressively towards the solutions for the next array of sub_atomic entities, you might reasonably ask "Where is the merit in the re_examination of the age_old belief in the four ancient elements of nature ... earth, water, air and fire?"

And in asking this question you find one of the kernels of the Surfi Tales. For there is yet much unknown about the cosmos, there exist still - mysteries of science, and unsolved problems of mathematics, for the nature of nature has not yet relinquished the entirety of her secrets into the hands of man. And if the greatest secrets of nature still wait ahead in the path of the evolution of man, then where can those secrets be hidden, but in the midst of simplicity.

Now I put to you that there are two faculties by which a man - male or female - or indeed any living being, has knowledge of the world:

"That is where the golden knowledge is,
the important parts,
signs of danger,
of safety,
of what is within the secret heart.
Remember,
all of us here,
men and women,
have three hearts,
one for all the world to see,
one for their family,
and one for themselves alone.

James Clavel (b.1925)
Aussie-born American writer.

Every living being attempts to reconcile the instructions of the mind and the heart, whereas in some areas (such as intellectual pursuits) the faculty of the mind excels, in other areas (such as artistic pursuits) the faculty of the heart excels in the expression of the issues at hand. The counsel of the ancient sages, and the elders of the peoples, and that of the saints of both the west and the east points to the management of both of these faculties of knowledge in harmony.

For neither faculty can claim a more fundamental substrate to consciousness than the other. If the mind were to leave we would become a vegetable, and if the heart were to leave then we would cease to live. Somewhere along the line a balance or harmony is achieved, and between the complimentary perspectives afforded by these binary systematics, we find our place in the world, and our path is thereby sought for the journey.

Footprints of experience across the vastnesses of the soul. The journey is not one of the mind alone, for the entire ontology of the living being - of Life itself - is borne in the understanding heart. This simplicity is rarely understood by the questing scientific mind, and it for this very reason that the second set of surfi tales looks again at the ancient classification of the elements of nature ... for these were they which were known by the evolving heart in terms of its absolute survival.

The ancient elements co_exist with the atomic, just as the heart and the mind of the observer co_exist. The ancients elements are foundational in the human generic culture of this planet, for they form the basis of our terrestrial existence, and their contemplation can only increase the understanding of the ecosystemic nature of life - both inner and outer.

The editor may be reached via E-Mail.

keep surfin' :)


PRF Brown
BCSLS {Freshwater}
Mountain Man Graphics, Australia
Southern Spring of '96

[Index]

Surfi Tales

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The Elements of Nature

"There being five solid figures,
called the mathematical solids,
Pythagoras says that ...

the earth is made from the cube,
fire from the pyramid [tetrahedron],
air from the octahedron,
water from the eicosahedron,
and the sphere of the whole [the Aither]
from the dodecahedron."

Pythagoras
From the account of Theoprastus
[Aetius II,6,5,DK,44,a15]

The Central Cosmic Fire

The cosmological environment of the earth was not known to the common man of the planet until the recent centuries, when it was shown that the earth spins on its axis and it is this phenomena which is responsible for the generation of the days and nights and not the orbit of the sun about a motionless and centrally located earth. Even Magellan, who circumnavigated the planet by ship some 500 years ago, was unaware that the planet was spinning within the cosmic environment of the solar system.

As such, it would have been difficult to set forth the primal place of the fire of sunshine, and give appropriate explanation for the actual distribution of the elements of nature, and the ultimate processes whereby they inter-react in the natural environment into which we are all borne.

The terrestrial fire of the ancients was indeed that primal campfire about which the tribe gathered for the entended vigil until the dawn and the rising again of the sun. But as each new day brought their lineage closer to the gradual evolution of primitive understanding, there arose some of them who perceived the nature of the cosmic fire - and the similarity between the sunshine and the faint glimmer of starlight.

In our recent generations only has there been set forth the understanding the content and the nature of the electromagnetic spectrum (wherein visible light is a small window), and the nature of nuclear and atomic energy. And in the journey into the Space Age we have only just commenced to appreciate the framework and the detailed nature of the vast cosmic environment. Upon an eternal chariot of the earth and moon and sun the emergent life and evolving consciousness of our terrestrial environment has been borne for billions of years.

In the venture into the cosmic fields we are yet young in the ancient cosmos. We stand at the shores of another ocean, an ocean of as yet unfathomable depth, like the global mariners from yesteryear.

The Elements of Nature represents a set of stories which question adherance to the traditional acceptance of the views of modern science, and instead re_explore the ancient world_views of nature with the advantage of twentieth century knowledge. These stories do not intend to oppose the world_view of the scientific community, but to compliment them from the observational faculty of the human heart, for the intellect and the heart must cooperate in a symbiotic process if there is to be achieved a harmony of life.

And it is with such research in mind that we arrive at TheTakeOffPoint
for the second set of Surfi Tales has rolled into sight:


[Index]

[Index]

[Index]

LogoforMountainManGraphics,Australia
WavePic

Elemental

Surfi Tales

Original Stuff
from DownUnder
The Spirit of Surfing
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia