spiritual being With the soul of a philosopher, the hands of an artist, the knowledge of a walking encyclopedia, and the brain of an inventor and engineer fused into one, Mitchell Rae of Outer Island Surfboards is a creator of the highest order. words: dave swan and mark chapman “One of the things that really attracted me to Buddhism is that it’s technically speaking, not a religion at all. It’s a philosophy, a state of mind. It’s a viewpoint of the cosmos.” For the bigger, longer conversation, listen at smorgasboarder.com.au/podcast itunes spotify buzzsprout 48
A trip down the coast is never complete without a quick visit to Mitchell Rae’s Outer Island surfboard factory. We are undeniably slightly obsessed with his boards but we find Mitchell’s deep sense of spirituality equally fascinating. While he wouldn’t take credit for it himself, spending time with this well-respected shaper and artist is often like a visit to an enlightened spiritual figure (clad in boardies instead of a flowing robe, of course) – you’ll leave feeling like you’ve had some deep, mystical knowledge opened up to you… Whether it be technical discussions on surfboard building and materials, or how to tread lightly on the earth and stay on the right side of karma, Mitchell always excels as a guide to a world of complex concepts. When we last spoke, our conversation transcended mere foam and fibreglass to his love for Eastern philosophy and a recent trip with his partner to Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Mitchell picks up the story. “I’ve been interested to go to Burma, Myanmar as it is known now, for a long, long time. As it happens we did a week in each country, three weeks in three countries - the Temple Tour. I was aware of Buddhism in all three of those countries, but I hadn’t really examined it closely and so our daily routine was to hunt out the most relevant, biggest temples in the area where we were. Once we made it up into Myanmar, it was fabulous. Like Mandalay, there’s some incredible ancient Buddha’s there and it’s my opinion that all these ancient temples are built on high energy points of the planet in a similar fashion to the great pyramids, which go way back into antiquity.” To explain Mitchell’s views in a little more detail, Planetary Energetic Grid Theory proposes the earth is made up of various intersecting points forming a grid or matrix, equivalent to the acupressure points on our bodies. These grid points are said to be found at some of the strongest power places on the planet. “It’s been proven by certain scientific thought that there are energy grids on the planet. There’s ones that are all locked together at the polls and interact, there’s an energy field which looks a bit like a soccer ball, there’s another one which looks more like the latitude-longitude sort of mapping of the globe and another, which is more like all triangles, like a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome. “Where these different energy grids intersect, there’s major power nodes and when you look at a map of the globe, at every one of those major power nodes, there’s a great pyramid from antiquity. So, it leads one to believe that there’s been a lot more knowledge for a very, very long time on this planet than what modern history gives credit for. And we still haven’t unlocked those mysteries at all. “On a smaller or on a more local scale, like in England, there’s been some volumes written about what they call the ley lines, which are of a similar nature following the lattice energy grids of the planet, and a lot of the great cathedrals and Stonehenge and various places of significance are located on these energised parts of the planet. “It’s my feeling that the same applies to all the great temples of Southeast Asia. By going and paying homage to these ancient Buddha’s and paying my respects, I’m also spending a lot of time at a really high energy zone of the planet, which I feel has some lasting impact on the molecular resonance over the human being, of the psyche as well, if you will.” Such comments possibly have your mind boggling and searching Google for topics such as Scared Geometry and the like, so I asked Mitchell to explain his line of thinking for the less learned like myself. “Well, I tend to think that Einsteinian theory has proved that we are made of energy. If you look at the building blocks of the universe, they’ve proved Einstein’s formulas that in reality, there’s kind of no such thing as solid matter. They’ve gone down to the building blocks that make everything - you’ve got atoms and then you go down to finer particles like and protons and neutrons and quarks when they get right down to the smallest particles, they now see they are in fact energy locked into a certain pattern. With a big enough microscope, they’re looking at these tiny particles and there’s actually no solid substance there, it’s all made of energy, which is what the great spiritual teachers have been saying for millennia. “Once you take that on board - that everything is made of energy including people and that energy according to Einstein is never lost, that it’s transmuted, it’s transformed - that opens up another whole viewpoint of humanity, people, the cosmos at large. So, going down that path, by immersing myself on the Temple Tour, it tends to really energise your spirit body because you know, it’s all energy, it’s all related. These are my personal viewpoints on it anyway.” Such core beliefs in turn serve to underline Mitchell’s approach to his handmade surfboards. “I’m kind of old school. I believe that when you shape a board by hand and you expose the surfboard to a lot of personal interaction, like even sanding them and glassing them by hand, all these things tend to instil the inanimate object with a certain amount of lasting energy. “That’s the difference with the path I’ve chosen making surfboards. I’ve made a conscious choice on several occasions to stay small and to make less boards and put more of myself into each one and I believe that suits my philosophy. It suits my viewpoint on life and surfboards.” 49
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