This is from the newsletter of the meditation teacher Jessica Snow from her Oct 22 newsletter
working with water
After communing with earth and fire, what a relief to connect to the element of water.
Maybe because water is so obviously life-sustaining, or maybe because so many of the forms it takes are so beautiful, I find this element very easy to engage with and learn from.
One thing I want to point our awareness towards is how water moves. From the precipitation cycle which draws moisture into the the highest clouds and then drops it all the way down to follow gravity all over the earth; to the way that water moves between states like ice, steam, and fog; to the way that water moves through our animal bodies; for all its simplicity, water knows where it is going and the path of least resistance to get there.
We also might gain from noticing how water knows how to change states, especially in relation to temperature and gravity. We also might benefit from leaning into water’s power to hydrate us AND wash us clean. We also might engage with water’s ability to be soft enough to wash a baby and powerful enough to carve away stone.
Water also has an interesting relationship to time; the creek dries up, the lake freezes, the ice cube melts.
We all live on a water-covered planet. We all begin in water (in utero) and we are in a profound relationship with water as long as we live. Whether we have become numb to it, or not, the water element is always dancing within us and all around us.
Here are some ideas for connecting to water:
- Every time you wash your hands, really drop into that experiential moment you are sharing with water. If you need liberation from something, ask the water to help you wash it away.
- Every time you drink a glass of water, speak blessings (for yourself, someone else or the world) into the water before you drink it.
- When you shower or bathe, connect to the water and use your fingers and imagination to clean the energetic field (or aura) around you.
- If you are blessed to be able to water some plants, either in a community garden or your own, join your energy to the water flowing through the hose or watering can and feel what it’s like to be the water bearer.
- Sit near a natural body of water and let the sound of the water talk with you as if you speak the same language. Let the babbling of the stream or crashing of the ocean waves or even the soft sound of a turtle pulling themselves from the pond onto a rock tell you what you need to know and perhaps more importantly, wash away any errors in thinking that might be going on.
I’m sure you get the idea and maybe will be further inspired by reading the titles of various water meditations I’ve written and recorded. Just looking at these reminds me of how many forms water can take and how many feels it can take us through.
And the last thing I’ll leave you with today is the very good advice to try on water’s perspective. A few years ago I took Farmer Rishi’s Regenerative Gardening class and he taught us to look at the land we live on/with and imagine ourselves as water in order to investigate - how much fun is that land for water to visit, play and dance around? In that one exploration, where I imagined myself a drop of rain or dew visiting the garden, that I suddenly understood which changes I could make to encourage water to stay a while, to linger and engage with the land (and me!) for a longer, more beautiful time. (Especially when I understood the underground water table as a place where water would love to hang out for a very long time - maybe even beyond my lifetime.)
Water is such a generous elemental - one that has been in a long dance with life on earth - I really hope that I’ve inspired us to engage with water in a conscious (and magical way) in order to make the most of this very important relationship.
Read the full post here: let us be liberated - Jessica Snow's PARALLEL SOCIETY