Riding the Waves: What We Learn from Surfers

1: What We Learn from Surfers

 

2: Astrology as a Surfboard

 

3: The Tao of Surfing

 

4: The Surfer’s Mindset: Ideas You Can Use

 

5: And the Next Wave…

 

The sea is a great teacher. You can’t escape dealing with your own concsciousness in order to master fear and develop courage. It is much more than just going with the flow.  It involves the way surfing can become a lifestyle, an obsession where surfers can develop mastery of the surfboard. They can learn the skill of riding the waves gracefully, to make it look like they are ‘walking on water’ or even gliding which is extremely difficult and can take its tol.  But experienced surfers can pull it off and it looks like they’ve achieved a miracle of dexterity and elegance by defying the laws of physics.

 

Waves on the ocean behave very much like the continual cycles of planetary motion. The time graph of planetary motions in one year look like waves on the surface of the sea. It’s the ebb and flow of time, except that at least you can see real waves for surfing and ride them if you can. The hidden energies are much harder to gauge as they are invisible, except through an ephemeris, the time tracking and the intuitive use of the symbolic language of astrology.

These are clear parallels that many astrologers have made over the years, so it is not new at all, yet we can learn some vital lifeskills, not just as astrologers, but as people dealing with information overload, the bombardment of the senses, and now with the feeling that time has speeded up, to be able to skillfully navigate what is thrown at us, by life, by the flood of information from friends, the internet, colleagues, governments, institutions, and especially by the media and managing all this has now beome a primary life skill.

 

2: Astrology as a Surfboard

Surfing philosphy has a lot to offer everyone. But astrologers are the cosmic surf-riders as they can read natal and transit charts to navigate what’s coming. And hopefully it is astrologers who can pass on this wisdom to their friends and clients and anyone who wishes to hear. The parallels are many:  think of aspects (Squares, Oppositions, Conjunctions, Sextiles and Trines) as waves, as part of multiple longer cycles. They build up, reach a peak and then disspiate back into the formless. Each ripple forms and can clash head on with another, or it can dissipate; a planet is either applying to the exact degree when it has most force, or separating from it when it has a diminshing force.

The Moon rules the tides and travels so fast we barely notice the changes and mood shifts, but with Saturn and Mars conjunctions we must pay attention as they directly affect us. Waves are good as the subject of meditation too: the pendulum may swing from intense action back to calmnness to create harmony and balance just as Yogananda Paramahamsa said back in 1972. This  idea of perfect balance from inner fusion of opposites is what enabled Lopez to master Pipeline the most formidable long wave formation on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

The cross currents from one growing aspect to another are like the riptides where one symbol clashes with another but can temporarily fuse into a hybrid energy. Handling your balance on a surfboard has been represented in Surfer’s artwork as Mercury, the Roman god of travellers. You need arms and legs to move quickly in a strong but fluid manner to stay on the board- think judgment, accelleration, speed and dexterity. The surboards have to be smooth, sleek and light and often hand-crafted. The boards that Lopez produced had a lightning flash symbol on them adding the Uranian touch of genius.

But the ocean is associated with the planet Neptune, or Poseidon, and this is the place where the self can be lost as there are no boundaries. There are many related gods and mysterious creatures like Triton (half-man, half-fish) the son of Neptune, and the Nereids, female sea creatures. Then there is Proteus the seal herder of the sea who had the gift of prophecy and truth, but who can rarely if ever be captured as he is the ultimate shapeshifter. In Santeria, there is Yemaya, the revered goddess of the ocean sea water seen in deep blue.Then there’s the Roman goddess of the sea, Salacia, (Amphitrite is the Greek version) connected to the salt and shimmering sunlight that reflects off the water. This is a trans-Neputnian object discovered in 2004 that you can find in your chart.  Sea horses are commonly seen as representing the sea, and in 2013 a small moon of the  planet Neptune was discovered. It was named Hippocamp- seahorse. Proteus is the much bigger of the 14 moons of Neptune and may have broken off from Proteus.

Nikola Tesla’s famous observation was that “if you want to understand the universe think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”  Frequencies are monitored and measured in waves. Physics talks of wave formation as an accumulation of particles, but perhaps they are both particles and waves at the same time. Waves go in motion as they are defined as an ‘energy transport phenomenon’ that uses a medium such as water.  Sound travels in waves, and so does light. So a circle is never 100% perfect, but can loop back on itself to form another variation, continually expanding the threads.

3: The Tao of Surfing

There is the idea of the Golden Mean ratio of harmony which is not exactly symmetrical but is slightly offbeat from the centre. This is how nature is generated with spiral formations and it even looks like how a wave forms. Waves in the sea develop in stages and surfers catch it only at stage B where it curls over to create a tunnel  before it crashes to its conclusion. It uses hidden proportions that grow organically to its peak; it then dies back down to its resting point from where it started. It’s the ultimate ‘bliss’ for a surfer to ride inside the tunnel and amazing for a cameraman to be able to capture that moment on film so we can see that happen.

All people really are like surfers in this sense. It’s how we deal with life, beginner to advanced, but astrologers learn to ride the waves through study of charts, aspects and transits, and understand how smaller cycles of planetary motion collapse into much longer cycles. The Saros cycle of Eclipses is an example; just one series lasts up to 1, 550 years and includes up to 87 eclipses in any given series. Where one series ends the other begins, with up to 42 series running parallel.

This is an understanding of time that begins to uncover the unseen threads and layers. It does not guarantee winning in terms of any obvious definition of success, but it can be a great insightful tool and guide to life. With so many oppositions occuring we can lose balance. Some people even become possessed by the archetypal energies of an aspect and manifest only its demonic outcomes. They go to extremes and want to kill off the other side without realising they are part and parcel of the same experience.

This is Yin and Yang integration if this feeling is properly understood. Alan Watts said trying to have one thing without its opposite is like trying to have mountains without valleys. Iain McGilchrist talks about this too which his ideas on how perception functions through right/left brain lenses: the one holistic and interconnected and the other restricted to linear logic.  It is better to have a view that integrates the two polarities and takes both perspectives into account. Michael Allen’s book represents this as the Tao of Surfing (1996) as the Tao is that which if it can be named is not what you think it is. It is often just beyond the reach of the ordinary mind.

The peak is at the crest of the wave- the exact degree of the aspect,  but it’s momentary. It passes instantly into the foam. The idea of stationing planets too is one of stillness and motion together where the grinding effect of a planet intensifies. But it is the apparent shift in relation to the Earth, yet we still feel it like a wave that somehow loops backwards.

Take the Jupiter Uranus conjunction March 21^st 2024 earlier this year as an example. Astrologers started noticing it last year in 2023. But it cycled back to 2010 when Jupiter and Uranus were neck and neck in Pisces, then across the end of Pisces to the beginning of Aries. That conjunction peaked around May 27^th.  And again in late December, early January 2011 around the time that Neptune moved into Pisces. Did anything major happen to you that year that cycled back into your life in March of this year? 2011 was the year I first took off to India to spend time in an ashram. But any personal space can be made to feel secluded. So what will we have when Neptune arrives conjunct Saturn in the sign of Aries next year? That’s a big one coming worth studying and preparing for.

Learning to ride the wave of every aspect can help us play the game and stay on the board longer. Astrologer and yogi Ray Grasse reflected on this pointing especially aspects involving outer planets, “Fortunately, astrologers have something of an edge in studying the zeitgeist, since they’re able to chart its various waves and shifting currents with some degree of precision.”

But even if you fall, there’s always another wave to play with moving in. We learn more and more each time another aspect or ingress greets us along and with outer planets we can be more in tune with the collective surge and separate that from our more personal issues. So the wave we can tackle the best is always the ‘next’ one. Falling too much can make us retreat from life. Getting back up is what takes work.

Not doing what you ought to be doing is like avoiding your dharma. Some of us may already have an inkling of what Dane Rudhyar said as he studied these cycles too: “When you don’t follow your nature, there is a hole in the universe where you are supposed to be.”

4:  The Surfers’ Mindset:  Ideas You Can Use.

So here are a few thoughts of mine about surfing They are like aphorisms so can be considered separately or taken as a whole:

• In order to ride on the wave, first you must know how waves behave.
• Watch the waves – study them till you can anticipate their motion at will.
• Cultivate the body-mind to its fittest so you can maintain equilibrium when the waves get rough.
• Concentrate and meditate on the wave: observe its growth, shape, length, depth, height and the way it flows to its conclusion.
• The pleasure of surfing the wave is beyond description but getting there is a lot of hard work.
• There is no grounding at sea – it is the province of air and water, not fire or earth.
• Respect the wave as it has the power lift you up high, or pull you down low.
• Whether the wave is really wave, or a set of particles masquerading as a wave, depends on the way you perceive it.
• See how one wave interweaves with another wave in the rip tide, but they all emerge from the same sea.
• Decide which wave you can ride and which you can’t.
• Conquer the fear of the wave in order to master the wave.
• Miss the wave and it has gone- until the next one comes. So we learn patience.
• A giant wave requires giant-sized readiness.
• Once on the ride, immerse yourself in the wave.
• A surfer moves with stillness and grace only when they are one with the wave.
• To be able to ‘walk on the water’ is the ultimate dance between the surfrider and the sea.
• Each new wave does not repeat the previous one, but is a riff that offers a chance to play the music differently.
• Time stands absolutely still in the midpoint of the wave that brings you in touch with the sublime.
• Being in the tunnel of a giant wave is like the wormhole of an eclipse: things are never the same on the other side.
• Surfing is the reconciliation of dualities: strength versus flexibility, timing versus opportunity, passive versus active, courting the right amount of danger while opting for safety.
• The sea swell levels us all and evens out perceptions of success or failure.
• There can be an ‘endless summer’ of wave after wave that makes life a continual ride.

And to really delve into this synchro-mysticism of surfing is to consider the way that time stands still at the centre of the wave tunnel.  Bernard ‘Midget’ Farelly said it this way:“You go into oblivion. Suddenly all your life is there in this long, stretched out wave. You’re removed from the past. Everything that has been on your mind becomes immaterial, everything goes to jelly, and you feel completely removed from the world around you. Nothing matters but you and the board and the wave and this instant in time.”

5: And the Next Wave…

Now apply all these ideas directly to your life.  And for the next year 2025 and then 2026 and beyond. Find answers to these questions as they may apply in different cyles and all seasons. 

• What’s coming in?
• What’s going out?
• Is anything boomeranging back into your life?
• Which moment do you need to wait for?
• Which challenge is worth taking up?
• Which one isn’t?
• Do you need stamina or need to rest?
• Do you need to learn a skill fast?
• If so, why aren’t you doing that?
• Can you develop grace under pressure? If so, how?
• Are you able to bounce back easily?
• Can you uphold multiple conflicting tensions within your psyche and still manage to make a cup of tea? If not, they you might have to  work harder at the balance between being too rigid and bending too far to accommodate what you do not want or believe in.

I am sure you can think of more. This way astrology can help you decide how much energy to exert, when to go forward and when to hang back. That’s just good timing. 

There’s a Jupiter square Saturn coming up; Jupiter in Gemini squares Saturn in Pisces, peaking in mid August, and again in December, but harping back to the same square from March 2016 so this is one to watch as well. There may be multiple opportunities but also things holding you back.

Surfers who generally are quite relaxed and know how to enjoy life, know what ‘bliss’ is and are able to live it to the full. While Gerry Lopez is not the only gifted surfer, his skill reached a high level making him one with the Ocean. Asteroids can mysteriously point to this unique skill as his asteroid Salacia- goddess of the ocean shimmering light – is conjunct his Jupiter at the Galactic Centre where the power comes from beyond. But another curiosity of his chart , is that when he travelled from Hawaii to Bali in search of new waves to conquer, he immediately sensed that Bali and West Java were ‘home’. The asteroid for Amphitrite – the Greek verision of Salacia- is conjunct the asteroid Bali at 4°of Sagittarus, the sign of travel. So he has planets Jupiter and Mars, and asteroids Salacia, also classed as a dwarf planet, Amphitrite and Bali all in Sagittarius!

It wasn’t all smooth riding for Gerry Lopez either, as he has suffered severe injuries in his time on the waves. But the lives of surfers can still teach the average person and astrologers in particular how not to overpredict and overthink the future. They might get things right now and again, but not always. Some waves defeat them. But surfers can show us how to be chilled while wobbling to maintain balance. There’s no fixed formula, but it involves combining strength, foresight, flexibility plus a whole heap of trust in the universe.As Lopez says “Surfing is a great metaphor for life. If you don’t move with life, it passes.”

We especially need this when major aspects that could have negative connotations – Saturn conjunct Mars or Pluto for example- begin to loom larger in the mind than how they actually pan out in the world.  It is easy to become obsessed by the negative, to look for signs of imminent death,  or to cave into fear, but not so easy to greet each experience with equanimity and resilience.

While I am not an actual surfer myself, I noted through many hours of watching sufers wait so long to catch a wave only to struggle with it, how fitting this metaphor really is:  a surfer has to make countless decisions about which wave to take on and how to ride it, and it takes a lot of experience to do it well. Arnold Toynbee’s definition of history was just ‘one damn thing after another.’ That’s a bit like waves and like life. One comes and then the next one comes in a repeat cycle. Some waves seem to come right at you, chosing you to overhwelm, to make you realise you are powerless against the sea- which is the boss. If it wanted to swallow you up, it would. Unless, you learn to ride it and learn not to resist. You cannot push the sea, but you can understand its ways.

The metaphor of surfing is applied to using the internet as well – we navigate to pages, and ride a wave of interest, but tumble down many scroll holes on the way where time seems to vanish, so that should tell us we are wading in a deep sea of information, not all of it light, some quite dark and designed to mislead. This washes up a lot of detritus on to the shore line. So we always have clearing to do.

The element of water still has a lot to teach us with its constant change and continual renewal- especially the sea which still inspires awe and its mystery cannot be labelled or curtailed. Whether you will never be an actual surfer and remain only a wave watcher, you can still become that skillful driver of your own life, knowing when to change gears and adapt, it is possible to at least imagine that you can walk or even glide sometimes in the roughest patches.

 

© Kieron Devlin, Proteus Astrology, June 26th, 2024, All Rights Reserved.

 

References

Allen, M. A. (1996) Tao of Surfing: Finding Depth at Low Tide.  Rainbow Books.

Coulson, B. (2002) Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing, Laguna Beach: Laguna Beach Museum/ Glinko Press.

Grasse, R. (2011) ‘Tuning in to the Zeitgeist – RIding the Waves of Planetary Change,’astrodienst.com.  Online: https://www.astro.com/astrology/in_zeitgeist_e.htm (Accessed 2/6/24).

Lopez, G. (2022) Surf is Where You Find It: Wisdom of the Waves Any where, Anytime, Anyway, Patagonia Publishing.

McGilchrist, I. (2012) The Master and His Emissary: the Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. Yale; Yale Uiversity Press. 

Peralta, S. (2022) The Yin and Yang of Gerry Lopez, Film, Patagonia Films. Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeTMPJ2B5VE (Accessed 10/6/24).

Surfexpedition.com (2024) ‘Surf Quotes that Capture the Essence of Life on the Waves’ (Online) https://surfexpedition.com/surf-quotes-that-capture-the-essence-of-life-on-the-waves/ (Accessed, 29/5/24)