SURFERMAG.COM ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

SURFERMAG.COM: Spiritually, is prayer something that you actively set out and do?

RASTA: Not really, I don’t think so.

SURFERMAG.COM: Is there a higher power that you look to?

RASTA: I think so…I look to it because I think in the moments when I really feel that is…when I’m a part…the only times that I would say I look to a higher power or acknowledge a higher power is in moments like this right now perhaps, where my mind is functioning and I’m all focused on my mind and talking. For me, when I sit in silence or have a mind completely clear of thoughts and just basically existing on a feeling, that to me is a feeling of God or feeling of a higher power. All the experiences in my life that I would regard as holy have made me feel as though I was just as holy and significant as God or every other person, or every other thing in this material world. I’m a real believer of my own experience. I am quite the questioner. I really want to know why things are the way they are and why I feel the way I do and why this is put that way, and why trees are shaped this way, and whatever. I really strongly believe and feel the truth of all the things I’ve experienced personally and all the things those experiences that have been really profound for me and really, deeply moving and beautiful and holy have made me feel like I’m with God. And all this is God (he points to the islands in the distance), like you’re God, that camera’s God and everything is sacred, everything is just as valuable as everything else, so I don’t like to separate. And all those things that I’ve actually felt, not just read, but actually felt have been so powerful and comforting and clear and powerful and beautiful have always told me in the sense of a feeling that we’re all God and we’re all holy and we’re all perfect and we’re all beautiful and those words that I’m trying to come up with but never quite reach it. I’m sure Scott you know this feeling I’m trying to express because it’s a feeling we all get when we get an incredible tube ride or whatever and then trying to explain that to someone that has never felt it, we all fall flat on our face when we try to describe that feeling…so I think that’s one real magical aspect of surfing that we all share, no matter what religious belief or what culture we come from, we all share that same experience of indescribability, that immensity of everything.

SURFERMAG.COM: Maybe that magical elusiveness is a sort of higher power?

RASTA: For sure.

SURFERMAG.COM: How do you measure success?

RASTA: Success is a funny word because it’s like you’ve reached a spot and it’s finished. Success. Success. Success (Rasta looks around, and is searching). In my mind and my feeling of the word it’s a continuous thing. It’s not like a goal reached and then forgotten all of the sudden. So I guess in saying that, success would mean change. Much like that saying: The only thing in nature that is constant is change. So perhaps synchronizing us with this environment and the nature of life everywhere in this realm that we’re in, being synchronistic with that would be success…in my opinion. The immediate idea of success is kinda like you reached a point and what is next? So I prefer the idea of a constant change means success.

SURFERMAG.COM: I understand that you meditate and do some chanting?

RASTA: Not so much chanting. I use sound. I use sound, but not so much chants. I'm not part of any kind of religion.

SURFERMAG.COM: In that moment, does it bring you closer to some entity?

RASTA: For me, it lifts a veil. It lifts a veil of everyday ideas and thoughts and concepts that kinda cloud your brain. When I sit down to meditate, it's to clear my brain, clear my body of any kind of feeling, any kind of energetic feeling. It's not like some physical pain or anything, but it might not feel like everything is fine, through your body and through your mind. So when I sit down to meditate it's generally to clear my mind, my energy field which I feel around me, and bring it back to a point of balance, to a point where I'm balancing how much attention, how much energy I'm sending to my heart and my head. So instead of it being always in your head, I can change it to being more of a balance thing.

SURFERMAG.COM: Let's bring it back to surfing and being in the water. Do you consider the act you do on the wave an act of sport or an act of art?

RASTA: Umm...I don't really consider it either.

SURFERMAG.COM: How about a dance, because I see your surfing as a dance.

RASTA: Perhaps as a dance. Umm...

SURFERMAG.COM: You're expressing yourself. Am I correct in assuming that there's an expression?

RASTA: Yeah, it's just like an expression of what's happening there and then. I guess it's just weird spackering-out dance, ya know? It's not like adhering to any choreographed series of movements or anything. Sometimes I feel a little brainwashed in going up and down, up and down on waves, but that feels good too. I find when I surf alone and there's no one around, I generally don’t ever go up and down, up and down, unless the wave really has a perfect lip for that, where it's really conducive to speed and flow, to go up, just scoot back down really fast, going up and down vertically, but where I live I don't get many waves to do that, so it's more about flow down the line, 'cause point breaks is what I grew up on, so it’s kinda like improvising a dance of some sort.