Smorgasboarder_Edition_45

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.”
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