the Adventure Lifestyle magazine

with dependence. The excitement offered by riding a wave begins with the release of all the energy that was built up while waiting for the perfect swell. In surfing, dependence is not bad. Instead, it's a form of purification (surfing cleanses but does not heal) . Water is the primary model for all forms of purification and this strengthens the images of obsession associated with surfing. The high that a surfer feels when riding a wave corresponds to another type of altered state: the feeling the shaper gets from inhaling the fumes (solvents and varnish) while making a surfboard. In Italian, the shaper is a sc;amo (engineer/conduit/ shaman). It is understood that his creations are not only vehicles for riding waves, but also conductors of energy and shields of protection against underwater gods. The inhalation of poisons adds to the already complex equation between ecological consciousness, mysticism, love for nature, nomadism and the physical sensuality that both inhabits and animates the surf world. The shaper is a charismatic, benevolent figure who voluntarily submits to the intoxication of poisons in order to marry the construction of a perfect board with the aestheticism displlly.c.d in a perfect ride . Til E STORY Surfing's mystique touches on the unconscious forces that produce an infinite series of stories. The story, sung as a narrated song, is central to the origin of surfing. It is at the heart of surfing's mythical and ritualistic nature. It combines the profundity of Dionysus' dance, Apollo's asceticism and Mercury's infinite capacity to travel, move and never stay still. Me/e, the Hawaiian term for song, had a double function in ancient Hawaiian culture. It was a hymn to the earth as well as a testimony to the ability and nobility of the surfer's enterprise on the surface of the wave. At the moment of a surfer's displacement, his falling, the mele was exactly the song that allowed the surfer to retu~n-guided by a magic recall-to shore. Mele was the singing of glory and guaranteed salvation in the same instant. Andy Martin writes in his book, Walkillgon Water, "The wave, like the mele, like all music . .. is a mental event since it is never wholly present in anyone instant and can only be grasped as a formal pattern existing through time." Think again of the space/ time continuum as a vast blank ocean that allows perfect, hollow waves to appear in certain places and, above all, prompts in us the desire to ride them. T ilE EXTREM ES OF ESCA I'I N(; ,I NIl CEN II' RING If what's interesting about surfing is that it's not just a sport, then there's no need to treat it as if it were one. Surfing basically fluctuates between total control over the wave-which, in any case,

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