Water: voice of grief,
Cry of love,
In the flowing tear.
Water: vehicle and idiom
Of all the inner voyaging
That keeps us alive.
Blessed be water,
Our first mother.
John O’Donohue, from “In Praise of Water” in To Bless the Space Between Us
The tender-hearted tendrils of our earthly soul need water to grow and flourish. While the earth as element brings us abundance and foundational grounding, water brings us into relationship and connection with deep soul nourishment that replenishes and cleanses us.
As we begin to look at and embrace who we truly are, we may unearth deep, raw feelings, feelings we have repressed, suppressed, and even “managed.” Denying and ignoring our emotions may seem to have served us, but over time, numbs us to everything, not just the emotions we choose not to feel.
We cannot only experience the feelings we like without the others. When there is no space for all our feelings, there can be no joy (and we all want more of that). Embracing the polarity, the duality, the paradox of sadness and joy needing to co-exist gives richness to life itself. Once we begin to feel again, we feel it all; life suddenly feels wonderful and shitty at the same time. It gets real again. Wisdom and freedom lie in the discomfort.
From this very real place, we are invited to face our deeper feelings, the grief and sadness of what we have left unsaid, undone, unfulfilled; what we have yet to leave, discard, and let go of, so we can dive down into the watery depths toward the messages from our soul. To access the deeper truths, we must open, allow and receive.
Water symbolizes our emotional center, our bodily intuition, the deep feminine, our subconscious and unconscious; and offers purification and cleansing of our soul. Deep and murky, in those shadows true treasure lies. Dipping a toe in or wading in up to our ankles, will do nothing for our soul. Riches don’t float to the surface unless they are tethered to the mud below.
To heal and nourish our neglected soul is deep, immersive work and yet can be held with gentle tenderness. Cacao became that gentle therapist for me, never taking me deeper than I could handle. She gently peeled back the layers of all I had taken on and assumed over time, so I could look at it all (and myself) with compassion and love. Cacao slowly raised things from my subconscious and unconscious during medicine journeys and in the dreamtime for me to examine in the gentle light of day. She invited me to be my own witness and healer.
Our soul wants us to feel again, not by wallowing, dramatizing or getting stuck in our emotions, but rather by witnessing them. How do we witness our emotions? By acknowledging them (“I feel sad” or “I feel afraid” or “I feel joyful”) and being grateful (thanking the emotion for how it has served you); understanding just enough of why it is showing up in that moment (you may want to connect to your inner child and then ask what she/he needs); and then fully accepting and integrating the feeling, allowing it to move through you. This is the path to healing and wholeness. We remember how to feel without being overwhelmed.
The lotus or water lily is a symbol of enlightenment because of the beautiful bloom that emerges from the mud. It is a symbol of purity, spontaneous generation and divine birth. – hunker.com
Allowing our feelings to be met in this gentle way tends to our tendrils, transforming the parched ground of our being into a lush, fertile inner garden with a pond of inner reflection and gorgeous water lilies emerging from the mud.
Copyright ©2019 Soulscape Coaching LLC.
When my coach trainer once said to me, “Oh, you’re a word person,” as I asked for subtle clarification on something she was teaching, I was a bit bemused, until I realized that I actually am! I am a voracious reader, I have a Masters degree in Rhetoric and Professional Writing, I worked in the educational publishing industry for 18 years, and I write a blog, so you could say I am definitely a word person. I LOVE WORDS. Or more precisely, I love the right words.
