Elemental Surfi Tales Original Stuff from DownUnder
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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

G'Day

Glad you could make it ...

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

For after the swell has dropped, or the light of day has withdrawn, the time has returned for the contemplation and gathering of knowledge and - if not the greatest of things returned to the surfer - the feeling of peace. The peace after the session. Where the Energy of the Surf still diffuses through the soul, where the wall and the face find themselves again in the balance of the memory, where flowing visions of the breaking waves and the watery world of surf still flicker and move through the mind, still rise & fall to the beat of the heart, and rekindle, as the SunShine the water, the rhythm of the breath.

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:

The faculty of the mind:
Intellectual knowledge is often made synonymous with the affinity one has with the generic body of scientific literature, and is commonly attributed to increase in proportion to the western cultural education. The mind is that faculty we employ to think and to form concepts, much like the tidal gathering of the ocean's waters, so that related issues may flow together. Furthermore, the mind is the faculty by which we reflect and contemplate the issues of the day ... much like the light of the night.

The faculty of the heart:
Survival, instinctual and emotive power represent the issues with which the faculty of the individual heart is employed. The heart is the center of life and of course has always been the center of love. All peoples of the planet in order to prevail and survive terrestrial existence - must indeed continue to eat food (or ingest earth), must continue to drink the water of life, and must continue to breathe the breath of Life. The faculty of the heart provides a sensory substrate to this level of activity. The knowledge which is in an individual's heart is commonly attributed to increase proportional to the experience of the world, and of life and of the cosmos.

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' :)

[Index]

Surfi Tales
The Elements of Nature

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:

Article 1 - The Elements of Nature
This article has been published previously in a number of other web magazines to date, and is presented again at its home site, as part of the Surfi Tales.
• Earth - Analysed by the scientific mind to an atomic table,
  yet known by the heart in terms of survival by food.
  
• Water - Analysed by the scientific mind to an H20 molecule,
  yet known by the heart in terms of survival by its own name water.
  
• Air - Analysed by the scientific mind to a mixture of N2 and O2 molecules,
  yet known by the heart in terms of survival by its own name air.

• Fire - Analysed by the scientific mind into the Electromagnetic Spectrum, the fire - of sunshine - is sourced from the cosmic fields, and has two aspects:
  
  • Light - The small window of human perception in the spectrum of energy
  • Heat - The more terrestrial/physical/vibrational manifestation of fire.

• Discussion of the fifth element Aether (or Akasha) is to be reserved until there exists an established working definition of terms in relation to the common understanding of the nature of the four elements of living survival which are known as earth and water and air and fire.

[Index]

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Article 2 - A Treck into the Mineral Kingdom - the home of the Mountain Man
Do you dare make the treck to the home of the Mountain Man?

The journey is long, there may be strange customs, and all that is offered at the end of the Road is a warming and light giving fire, before the journey homeward must re-commence. But for those of the quiet and pioneering spirit, mayhaps there will be discovered along the mountain paths, new views and vistas of the terrestrial ecosystems within which we all have co-evolved and of the cosmic ecosystems, the faintest glimmer of which, we are now only just perceiving.

[Index]

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Article 3 - Shamrock Surfi Tales ... and the Book of Sunshine
This article is drawn from the author's journey beneath the stars upon the land known to some as The Emerald Isle back in the middle of the '70's. It is placed here, as the third wave of the set, because it represents the recollections (made at that time) of the nature of the lands through which the author travelled, and in particular, the commentary concerning the elements of nature - specifically the nature of the sunshine.

The nature of the sunshine is like a spring of water in the desert, only on a cosmic scale. Have you ever swum in a fast flowing river high in the mountains and looked upwards into the peaks for the source of the flow? Well there is a river of light and energy which flows from the sun at an incredible speed of 186,000 miles per second (thats 300,000 kms per second), and it is this river which provides sustenance, and has provided sustenance for the last few billion years, for the emergent terrestrial phenomena which we perceive as the nature of living beings.

Each star in the cosmos is the potential of such a spring, and the resultant topology is thus much alike an ocean of fire (or light). These deep oceanic swell patterns generated by the innumerable suns continually interact with other swell patterns and, at remote terrestrial islands within this cosmic ocean of light, the cosmic surf breaks continuously upon, and interacts with the nature of this terrestrial environment. The nature of the sunshine is thus representative of the cosmic nature ... an ecosystemic engine of life.

[Index]

	Elemental Surfi Tales Original Stuff from DownUnder
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Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia