top of page

surf sacrifice * XIII


Swells always end. Give thanks and acknowledge your awareness of her cycles. Gather round the surfside campfire in thanks. Celebrate surfing as a creative act of exchange. Praise the board. Surfing as ritual returns the flow. Simplify and get to the essence. Surfing is release from what’s dead – girlfriend, job, money worries. Get rid of dinosaur boards and dried out, brittle wetsuits. Rid yourself of excess. Give it up with your holy tees. Shed your Spicoli persona. Is it the end of yourself as the shortboarder? Ride your surfin’ hearse through that death bowl. Unleash your surf chant rant. Start surfing again. Is it time for a surf sabbatical, for some real surfing? Real eyes your surf sovereignty. Indulge your irrelevant stance. Surf hard. Is there a wave crisis? Our surf hunger can bring us to sacrifice our dearest possession, our most sacred object. Wave hungry surfers wish death to the flat spell. Sacrifice the spirit of your “stick.” Paddle out. A true surfer, with conviction, cannot lose what belongs to us. Our surf Phoenix will rise from the death white ash of our surfing ancestors laid to rest over our reefs of antiquity. Our prayers are but offerings in hopes of the surf building. While we await new swell, tide or glass off, we pray to bring the waveless ocean to life. We pray for surf.

Engender a new relationship with the ocean. Instead of wishing for what’s next, give thanks for what we’ve had, and pray for what will be. Death is not an end, it’s but part of the cycle. Flatness never persists – swell always runs anew. Offer a welcoming ceremony. A ceremonial tribute adds depth to the experience. Ritual is the means to come into contact with divine or supernatural will. Activation creates harmony within and without. There is healing in nature. Your awakening consciousness will reinforce and fortify your relationship to the Intangible. Remain true to your truest of natures, not others. Ritual is discipline. Make the effort to reconnect. In yearning for freedom and creativity your true face develops. Maturity comes from knowing yourself. Pay attention to bodily changes. Anticipation brings new direction. New doors will open. Adventure will commence. The dead end in Costa Rica is nothing more than a transformation, a metamorphosis not unlike life and death itself. Our evocation is but an invocation. Having been without bathing, humble and barefoot, and wearing worn-out, torn and ragged, deadbeat clothes, and with unkempt hair, our saltwater cleanse heralds hope for regeneration. The acknowledgement of the spiritual, in moving from the material to the spiritual, clears out stagnation and invites more Flow. Connection, with flow and flux, bridges essential experience. As juju man our beach juju is timeless benediction and symbolic purification, which replaces the moribund and brings death to what’s stagnant. The unfolding of the new from the passage of the olde is a liberating experience. Our spiritual unfoldment helps us to relate to the cosmos. Looking out upon the dead sea with no surf, we are but more serene. We harken back to the basics and unto the four seasons, moving like winter into spring, knowing the importance of giving thanks. Like the rivermouth into the ocean, go into the darkness with the sunset, in gratitude.

illustration Zen Del Rio

Our beseechment has squired us the ominous presence of destruction and renewal. And as positive destruction runs destructive and creative, we sense an opportunity to make amends for past mistakes; but we’re uncertain, feeling restless, and even annoyed. As the wind comes in and blows it out, we’re not getting the surf we want. We’re desperate, as development has plateaued. We sense betrayal, even feeling bereaved, or at the very least unlucky. We’re mourning the loss of swell. Deprivation has us hoarding waves. Finally we’re satiated, and ready to come in. The swell has become static. Impoverished and poverty stricken, we are afflicted souls. Is nothing sacred anymore? Are the arcane rites of fire symbolic of our anger? Is it that we can’t deal with death within? Do we project it out to others, and in turn face public censure? We won’t let go. We’re a cling-on. We’re stuck with a cutting personality. We’re surfing stiffs. Our dinosaur mentality is rotting us to the core. We’re brain dead and senselessly beyond ridicule. It is time to sacrifice our old identity and put an end to our masquerade.

Grieve and move on. Transcend what’s mundane to what’s spiritual. Wear your hood to stay warm, but be the ocean. Transmute your dark unconscious. Be like a sea snake – shed watery, negative emotions. Metamorphize. The clouds will break. Lighten up. Fast. Empty your mind, and body. Eat healthy. Ask for help. See your shaper. Just go surfing. Visit your girlfriend. Be willing to consort. Be compatible. Be bare of pretense. Invoke the return of a divine intervention. Develop a ritual. Sacred fire is your teacher. Burn out impurities. Get lost in the flames. Flames are to divine by. Honor the divine. Do ceremony. Out with the olde and in with the new, life is but a ceremony. Give ode in anticipation of the new to come. Renew. Start anew. Make room for what’s new. End something. End bad habits. Leave your hang-ups behind. You’re movin’ on. Move into a new phase. Don’t hold back. Get into a rhythm, and into the flow. Spring into action. Prune and clear away. Give your responsibilities a good purgative. Can’t bear to see them go? Enjoy the newfound freedoms of our next generation. Same as it ever was? Be a teenager again. Retool. Rewax. Ritual allows you to experience spirituality now. What needs to die? Join with ritual elimination and purification. Do you cling to old or outmoded ideas? Unclog. Is there any utility left to your thoughts and values? Stay connected to spirit. Do you fear change? The only constant is change. Prepare for your turnaround. Rest and rebirth. Activate your senses. You’re feeling lucky.

Lucky Day by John Olvey

Recent Posts
bottom of page