June 6, 2012. Blog #19

Moonstruck. The water of Life

Last nite, I caught sight of the full moon rising, deep red as it slowly crept above the horizon, over the restless water of the indigo sea, about 9:30 PM. I was sitting in a Greek taverna, eating my gyros and hot dolmades, when the proprietor called out Opa! La lunes!, to the French men he was serving. He was the first to see the red demilune peek above the sea. A turned and was transfixed as it slowly emerged over the minutes. One of the Frenchman came over by my table to watch, saying, “fantastique”. There was a hush in the taverna by the sea. Even the local Cretan men, drinking Raki, shot by shot glass, we’re hushed from their loud emphatic conversation and proclamations. As I finished my meal and sipped on the local vintage red wine, from the mountains behind the village, I gawked and stared at the full red “moon like a lover” as the lyrics of the Little River Band song, “Cool Change” goes. It’s a song I have long loved. Part of it goes, “If there is one thing in my life that’s missing, it’s the time that I spend alone, out on the cool blue water. It’s such a lovely feeling to be out out on the sea alone, staring at the full moon like a lover….. Time for cool change, tiiiime for a coooool change……”. And that feeling is not missing for me any more. :~>)

The red moon offered its blood red moonbeam path across the water. Slowly, over the next half hour, as it rose, it became orange with a beckoning orange light path, moving and shimmering, inviting. So full and fat and mesmerizing, I continued to gaze at its lengthening pathway across the waves as it continued to rise as I walked along the seaside promenade back to the road leading to my cottage. I remembered so well a book that I found and read to my kids when they were small, “The Garden Behind the Moon”. It was as magical and enlarging of my children’s imagination as this red to orange moon was now. What do you, what do I imagine the garden behind the moon is like? It feels akin to the faery stories and magical leprechaun legends of Ireland, stirring my fancy with wonder. This moon and it’s beckoning path was a waking dream for me, that still trembles in my chest.

And the sky has been inviting us into a different space of wonder, with the transit of Venus across the raging sun, once in hundred years, last night, on the 5th of June (my 36th wedding anniversary). It was a fitting day, indeed for the transit of Venus, goddess of love:+>;). And the partial eclipse of the occurred on June 4th. Meanwhile, Mars has been in opposition, closest approach to Earth on March, 3rd. And Saturn conjunct opposition, closest approach to earth on April 15th. Old Jove, Jupiter reached conjunction with Venus, <; 3 degrees apart, the two brightest stars in the western sky March 14th. And they were joined nearby with the crescent moon, March 3-25th. There will be many more such events this year, leading up to the winter solstice, 12-21-2012 and the 11:11 digital phenomena (more on this controversial and fascinating cycle in future).

Of these heavenly bodies, though for me, there is a trinity of Earth, Moon, and Sun, with Venus, the maid of honor.

And then there's the sea, the sea.

What of the elements especially touched me today? I invite you to go with me. It was a very windy day, with whitecaps and strong surf, the tide coming in with the full moon, when I went to swim and snorkel. I think you know how it can be stepping in to cold water. First, I dipped my toe in the foaming water and noted a slight shock, that it is cold! Then, slowly, I stepped on up to my ankles, the calves, in the surging, breaking wave impact on the smooth round pebbled beach. I put on my snorkel, then stepped deeper, to my thighs, wheee, ok, time for a dive in, across the bigger rocks, as the surf crashed into me up to my crotch. As I dive, I notice the instant chill and thrill of the cold sea surrounding my body, immersing me and triggering a thousand skin touch and temperature receptors, with reflex sudden inhalation through my snorkel. I am looking down at the rocks and surging stirred up water, and feeling the waves crest and breaks over me. I breast stroke hard, out beyond the shoreline surf and feel myself held in the buoyant heaving sea. The wind is high and the waves come rolling and pushing me up and back. I notice as I swim out towards the underwater rocks, where the fish hang out, that I am making little progress. There is current east to west along the beach against me and also the tide coming in wants to wash me back to shore. I stroke and kick and stretch, gradually making progress. I am glad that I am fighting the current and tide while I am fresh; I know I will have it at my back on my return. I note that, after a few minutes of swimming against the current that I am not cold; the water is wonderful! I feel myself gliding, my arms reaching out and pulling me past the waves and the rocks on the bottom. My feet kicking now automatically, pushing me forward and splashing a bit on the surface. A bit of sea water enters my mask, but not a problem.

As the waves heave and roll past me, tossing me up and back and forward, my beloved snorkel remains above the waves and my breathing is deep and regular, a pleasure to focus on the deep breathe in and out of my snorkel. I don't have to lift my head or struggle to keep my head above the breaking waves, I glide and float, flexible, strenuous, increased heart rate and breathing with joy and a kind of ecstasy. Once in a while, I lift my head to see where I am with respect to the beach and the rocks. I am coming up on a rocky outcropping from the shore. The waves are pushing me hard into the rocky cove. I change the angle of my stroke and move parallel to the current until I am past the rocks. I swim back closer again to watch the fish hovering along the craggy breakwater. Timing my strokes, I stay clear of the breakers, as I am heaved up and down, back and forth in the foaming water.

Feeling the beginning of fatigue and noting that I am perhaps 3/8 mile from my point of entry, I turned back and luxuriated in the following sea pushing me forward with its rise and fall, surge and recession. I zigzag and play with the favorable current, swimming to each under-water rock formation to watch for fish. As I near the beach where my towel, glasses, hat, water bottle, and small mat is, I swim further out to sea. I pick my spot and begin to swim the crawl hard and steadily. The current and the tide at my back carry me in, sailing, slipping, flying through the white topped waves. I let it carry me through the surf and stayed head down, swimming until I was only a foot from the bottom, my hands grasping the pebbly beach, to avoid the bigger, more bruising rocks a few yards further out. I haul myself up, panting and smiling, endorphins pulsing and fall onto my towel and mat to catch my breath and dry off.

For me, that is the elemental at its best. It is one of the most fun things that I can imagine, though I might prefer calmer water and coral reefs. Sorry, my imagination always has a temptation to go one step beyond heaven…..

How is water elemental? It covers 70% of the planet, makes up 70 % of our bodies, and is the mother from which all evolution of life seems to have come. We cannot live more than a week without fresh water, or only a few days, in the desert. It is becoming the most precious and limited, irreplaceable resource. Droughts cause famine and untold misery for millions of poor people. Floods and tsunamis devastate vast areas of land, washing away homes, fields, livelihoods, and people. As we seek to investigate the potential for life on other planets, we seek evidence of water as a critical factor in the possible life on the planet. We love the sound of the ocean, the rushing river, the small steam burbling, the creek whispering…. Something about the sound of water is reassuring and tends to help us sleep. Swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving, deep sea diving, bathyspheres plummeting into the abyss, for salvage, rescue, exploration. Fishermen and whalers, oceanographers and scientists take the pulse of the life on our planet.

We have countless words that describe water and its action or qualities. Tides, currents, waves, breakers, surf, ripples, still waters, rainbow. Reservoirs, lakes, ponds, puddles, canals, channels, pipes, bays, inlets, lagoons, tidal zone, mangrove swamp, wetland, waterfall, geyser, eddy, vortex, whirlpool. Bath, basin, tub, glass, hose, faucet, tap, nozzle, flush, toilet, bidet, W.C. Mist, fog, clouds, steam, rain, hale, snow, sleet, freezing rain, rime, ice, iceberg, ice floes, ice skates, ice cubes, ice caps, ice bags, glacier.

And our senses, taste, drink of water, splash and wash hands and face, bathe, shower, hot tub, jacuzzi, hydrotherapy, swimming pool, steam room, cold shower, sauna with cold dip, eskimos. Water gallons, squirt guns, sprinklers, splashing.

The elemental fury of water is always present as well, Hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, cyclones, monsoons, downpours.

But, we also notice personality traits, fluent, in the, deep, still, wishy washy, rain maker. Depth psychology and our dream life see water as universal symbol, feminine, emotional, unconscious, chaos, primordial soup. Thar be dragons, the old sailors knew. Sea monsters, leviathan, Kraken, Scylla, Charybdis, Loch Ness monster.

And what is the spiritual aspect of water?

The Nile river was a crucial part of the Egyptian myth and spirituality. For the Greeks, when a person dies, he/she must cross the river Styx, ferried by the blind boatman, Charon and terrified by the 3 headed dog, Cerberus. All creation myths begin with chaos, water to be separated into dry land, sky/heavens, and subsequent creation of life. In Genesis, God's spirit hovered over the face of the deep, before he separated the dry land. The Celtic myths begin with the first inhabitants arriving from out of the western ocean. The Irish have long considered wells and springs holy as well as their rivers, especially the River Boyne. Modern pilgrims to the Holy Land of Israel, bring home small vials of water from the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, or the Dead Sea. Or pilgrims bring home water from Lourdes after drinking, washing, anointing, bathing in it with hopes of healing.

The river, mother Ganges, is the sacred art river of life and death, a pilgrimage site for millions for baptisms, bathing, healing, special prayers, blessings, and cremation and burial.

In non-dual awareness, what we experience, sometimes in meditation, sometimes in nature, or in moments of great beauty, music, art, love, and compassion, a feeling of connectedness to All has been well described as oceanic consciousness, united with all, yet paradoxically, still a separate drop in the ocean. This sense of union with God, all created beings, and the universe has perhaps its most tangible metaphor and symbol in the ocean. Similarly, we may often experience our life like a river, time flowing onward, drawing ever nearer to the return to the oneness with the sea.

A wise friend and dear cousin emailed me a note about the elements of the sacrament of the eucharist (eu is Greek for good, charism is Greek for gift (good gift). In the sacrament, we as Christians celebrate the mystery, in remembrance of Christ's offering us His body and blood at the Last Supper, in the form of the bread and wine. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus' first miracle was changing water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana. Later, he met the Samaritan woman at the well, and asked her for a drink of water.

And the Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist. This was the beginning of the sacrament and ritual of Baptism, cleansing and washing away sins of the old life, actually being drowned, dying to the old life and arising newly born in the spiritual life, a member of the family of God. I remember my own baptisms. When I was 7 years old and my sister was 3, our mom took us by train to Chicago and then train to New York City. We had Catholic relatives there and a family church of St. Josephs.
We had pouring of the water over our foreheads and prayers chanted in Latin. We had to wear special baptismal clothes. It was mysterious and over my head (whoops, sorry). However, when I was in the Navy overseas aboard a ship (US New Orleans), that docked in the Phillipines, I had begun to realize that I did not really have a clue about relationship with Jesus Christ. My view of God had been far more distant, abstract, and mystical than the personal relationship with God through Jesus. I had heard all this in college, (Baylor was a southern baptist university at the time, often called Jerusalem on the Brazos River). So, I was baptized a second time in a swim suit, full immersion, in the warm tropical sea off of the Island of Luzon. The element of water is a spiritual renewal on many levels.

In The gospel of John 4:10 and 13, He said to her if you knew the gift of God and who it is who asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Everyone who drinks this (well water) will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water that I give will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Also in the Old Testament, when God was angry with humanity, in the days of Noah, he sent a huge rain 40 days and 40 nights to the drown the whole world, except for a few righteous ones, Noah and his family, and 2 by 2 of every creature onto the ark. A rainbow sealed His promise never to drown the whole world again.

In the biblical book of revelation, the final book and final chapters after describing the apocalypse, Revelation 22:1-2 "and the angel showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the stream, and on either side of the river of life, was there the tree of life, which bare 12 fruits and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree of life were for the healing of the nations.

I invite you to contemplate the element of water, mother ocean, river of life, H2O, in all and any form, and give thanks.

Note the qualities of beloved water, how it behaves, flowing always down with gravity, filling and taking the shape of its container, and slowly powerfully eroding mountains, nourishing forests, in a never ending cycle of evaporation from the ocean, precipitation, flow, and water all of life, moving back down to the ocean again.

A few Haikus about water. I plan to try some of my own:-)

At the ancient pond
A frog plunges into
the sound of water
(Basho 1644-1694)

rain falls on the grass
filling the ruts left by
the festival cart
(Buson 1715-1783)

a world of dew
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle
(Issa 1762-1826)

solstice dawn
a flotilla of sea ducks
turns eastward

thunderstorm
The feeling of the air
beforehand

gale force wind—
the shrieks of the gulls
flying in place

honeymoon
we wade into the current
of a great river

the ripple effect
one's power spreads hope and change
for a better world
(Gloria Buono 2006)

after summer';s rain
God's promise is remembered
glorious rainbow
(Udia)