Engaging the Elements: WATER

July 07, 2021 0 Comments

Engaging the Elements: WATER

Fluid / Emotional / Nurturing / Idealistic / Imaginative

by Sara Timms / Image by Sharon Johnstone

We live on the Blue Planet, Earth. Over 70% of it is covered by water and more than 80% of that water remains a mystery with unmapped, uncharted, unseen depths right here on Earth. Most of that water is found in our oceans, which produce more than 70% of the oxygen we breathe, regulate the Earth’s climate, and contain far more life than is found on land (source).

Now let’s think about our bodies for a moment, considering each as a “body of water”. Up to 60% of our bodies are made of water which is required for nearly every function our bodies perform, from our blood flowing, to our knees bending, to our eyelids opening. A human can survive for about 3 weeks without food, but would only last about 3-4 days without water.

Water is believed to be the origin of life on Earth. So, what is water actually? H2O is the formula for 1 Hydrogen atom and 2 Oxygen atoms which can exist in liquid, frozen crystalline or vapor states. Most astronomers believe that water was carried to a dry Earth on Asteroids which landed here, but this is still debated (source). Though the science of water is interesting, it’s effect upon the Earth is far more telling of it’s nature.

As a river gently carves through Earth’s solid crust creating massive canyons over time with gentle persistence, these thruways have nourished wildlife and drawn settlers in from ancient times to modern. The rushing whitewater river is always adaptable and pirouettes around gigantic boulders with the grace of a crystalline swan. Even the great measureless sea’s tides are pulled in and out by the magnetism of the moon - a great force which is receptive and amenable. The ocean waves meet the solid earth with rhythmic invitation to surrender, and eventually fall into or up out of the sea’s horizon with rising and falling sea levels over the aeons. In the form of a storm, enraptured with electric bolts and thunderous roars, it first humbles us with it’s dangerous power. We are then left with flood or fertile land which we must heal or cultivate. It is without question that water is a force of transformation, for better or for worse.  

 

Niagra Falls. Fun Fact: Water has been harnessed as Hydropower from as far back as the 4th Century BC in the form of watermills in the ancient Near East. More recently, Niagara Falls briefly provided power for much of New York at the dawn of our electric illumination via Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse’s Hydroelectric plant in 1895.

 

New age consciousness pioneer Masaru Emoto published a New York Times bestselling book illustrating how the crystalline structure of water changes based on messages which are infused into the water, creating the theory that water is conscious. While many question and unsuccessfully have tried to re-create his results, it is important to understand that consciousness is never easy to study or quantize. There have, however been recent studies proving that water has memory (source), and surely as science expands more deeply into the quantum field and the interconnectedness of all things, Emoto’s experiments will be seen as valid by the sceintifc community. The new age community in the meantime has enthusiastically accepted his miraculous findings as truth, and has many teaching and instructions on how to program your water for just about anything in your life that you might like to change (source).

One would be remiss to discuss water and consciousness without bringing up that Master Magician named Jesus. He is said not only to have walked on water, but also to have turned water into wine. Two thousand years later, millions of people are still being baptized by Holy Water to take part in the epic and emotional drama of the Christ as a Savior to Mankind.

There is something called an “Astrological Age,” which spans 2000 years of each of the 12 signs of the zodiac, affecting the entire Earth and the actions and beliefs which form during that period. Astrologers do not agree upon the exact date in which the ages begin and end, but it is for certain that we are transitioning from 2000 years of a Piscean Astrological Age into the next 2000 which will be an Aquarian Age, aka “The Age of Aquarius”. Pisces is a water sign which carries currents of both healing love, and destructive idealism. One of the Piscean traits is self sacrifice for the greater good, and often for a spiritual ideal. This is to view the world through the watery lens of emotion, where love extends beyond self and personal relationships into the deepest sea caverns of lurking great Great White Sharks, and into the misty swirling water of seductive siren songs. Think “love your enemies”, a famous Jesus quote, and better yet, “unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” (source)

Aside from being the primary ingredients of all 3 water signs, Pisces, Cancer, and Scorpio, what does it mean to be born of water and spirit? Sounds a bit like a formula to me: water + spirit = Heaven. It is known that Jesus spoke in parables and symbolism, so let's look at the symbol of water. In Ceremonial Magic and Tarot the Element of Water is represented by a Cup, or Grail. The power of water is meaningless unless it can be contained in a vessel. What is the power of water? It’s love! What other power would create a story of a Saviour who loved mankind so much that he was willing to die for them, in the watery, idealist age of Pisces?

 

The Ace of Cups in Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot Deck. Shop the deck Here!

 

The purest essence of water would be unconditional divine love. Ideally that kind of love begins in the womb of the Mother, which is also symbolized as the Cup or Grail. What exactly is spirit and how do you combine it with water? Today’s dictionary says Spirit is “an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms”. Late fourteenth century alchemy defined spirit as “substance capable of uniting the fixed and volatile elements of the philosophers stone”. The Philosopher’s Stone is also known as the Elixir of Life which is a potion (source) or water that grants eternal life or immortality. The animating or vital principle which gives life would be considered volatile, as to be living is to be in flux.  

If water is love, then it’s movement is expressed in emotions which are activated by love or it’s opposite, fear, within the individual person or vessel. Love is expansion, infinite. Fear is contraction, finite. The fixed aspect of water is Love, and it’s currents are activated by relationships and situations which amplify love, or fear. What is required for the alchemy of love and fear, or more accurately, for the volatile currents of fear to be united with the fixed aspect of love? A still vessel is required which holds pure water, or Virgin water. The original meaning of “Virgin” can be traced back to sovereignty and belonging to one’s self. Was Mother Mary perhaps more enlightened than the bible gives her credit for? Was Jesus born of perfected Water and Spirit because Mary had mastered the alchemy of her own immaculate heart, and knew how to remain in the golden stillness of Love, even as the emotions of fear or joy threatened the banks of her scarlett rivers? Was Mary, Stella Marie, The Star of the Sea, so connected to the burning sun star above that no depth of her body of water was without spirit? 

That Sea is the living water of love. It’s is the womb/ tomb of creation/ destruction, ruled by Plutonic Scorpio; the heaving tidal flux pulled to and fro by Cancer’s Mother Moon ruler. And the transcendent whale song of Neptune’s Piscean depths calling us all to stop and listen to our hearts.

 

Historical Lore

• Undines are elemental spirits of water named by Paracelsus in his alchemical writings
• Melusine is a female spirit of a fresh water body such as a river or sacred well. She is half serpent or fish from the waist down. Her stories usually include her marrying a human man with the condition that he cannot see her bathing so as to hide her aquatic nature. He always breaks the oath and she shapeshifts to escape him.
• A mermaid is the most common water spirit in our culture, being a woman with a fish tail whom lives in the sea. There are all kinds of treacherous lore regarding this dreamy mystical femme, including sirens louring men to their death with their sweet sea song, and impossible love stories between the maid and the man.
• Gwaragedd Annwn are enchanting fairies who live under lakes and rivers from Welsh Folklore. They too take on human lovers, creating much drama, and ultimately combining the realms of the water fae and human folk.
• Lady of the Lake was a mysterious woman found in the Arthurian Legends. She lived under a lake and bequeathed King Arthur’s Magical Sword to him, but also was said to have kidnapped Sir Lancelot as a child to ultimately heal him and cure him of madness.
• Selkie are seafolk in Celtic and Norse Mythology. They can shapeshift into Seals, and are often coerced into having relationships with humans when someone steals and hides their sealskin.
• Morgens are tricky Welsh and Breton water spirits which drown unsuspecting men.
• The Rhinemaidens are 3 water nymphs in Richard Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Nibelungen. They have renounced love in order to guard the Rhine Gold, and if one violates the oath, the gold is in danger of being stolen.
• Neptune was originally the Roman God of freshwater until he became identified with the Greek God of the Sea, Poseidon and became a deity of the Sea.

  

Mermaids by Arthur Rackham

The Lady of the Lake by Lancelot Speed, c. 1912

 

Understanding and Using Water in Our Practice

Start with your birth chart and find out if you have any significant planets in water signs (if you don’t know your birth chart, you can generate one here for free!). If you do, make sure to learn about this alignment and see how it has played out in your life. If you don’t have any planets in water signs, remember that you were born in water, and that you lived in water inside of your Mother’s womb for 9 months before arriving onto this glorious place we call Earth. Water is love. It represents your fragility, vulnerability, and receptivity. Your body is soft because it’s full of watery parts, and pulsing aquatic blood. To initiate yourself into the element of water, initiate yourself into your own pulse. Study your heartbeat with eyes closed, and mind off. Feel your pulse in your neck or wrist, and remember that you are feeling your very lifeline. Touch your heart center with the palm of your hand, and feel what you feel. Is there pain? Then you will work with the water element to heal it. Is there desire? Then you will work with the water element to receive what’s meant for you. Is there coldness? Then you will work with the water element to invite love to melt your arctic frost.

 

Alchemical texts by Nicolas Barnaud, c. 1538 - 39

 

Ritualistic Inspirations 

General Disclaimer: Always proceed with great caution with the elements! To avoid mishaps, and creating elemental disasters, contain your magic within a protective circle of salt, or energetically sealed with an astral circle drawn with an athame. I recommend adding to your ritual “For the good of all and with harm to none”. Remember that life and magick are a creative process. The elements have general correspondences (example: fire=creative, water=emotion, earth=foundation, air=mental world) but will always be expressing themself through your body in different ways depending on your growth, and life circumstances. Utilize these changing tools!  

• Surrender! This is the art of water. All you have to do is lay on your back and state aloud that you surrender to the will of your heart, or the path of your divine waters.
• Go to a float tank and try the above. Don’t be surprised if some shadows come out! Many wounds hide within our depths. We need to see them so we can heal them.
• Baptize or re-baptize yourself in a meaningful way. Go to a place of water that is sacred or special to you. Write a sentence or 2 about what you would like to baptize yourself in, acting as a rebirth. Some will want to be reborn in divine love, the flowing waters of abundance, or pick a God or Goddess to come through the water.
• Write down all of the events and memories that still cause pain in your heart. Fill a glass with water and light a Water candle. Safely burn the list as you say goodbye to these events as teachers you no longer need. Place the ashes in the chalice of water, and offer that to the Earth to cleanse and reuse.
• If you are having trouble processing an event or trauma, fill a cup with water. Concentrate on the water and send your problem into the water. Now freeze that cup of water into ice cubes. Leave it there and stop thinking about the problem for a while knowing that the water element is holding it for you and allowing the divine to process it. When you’re ready to revisit or move forward you will chew the ice cubes and be done with it!
• Work with Archangel Gabriel whom is associated with water, the chalice, and the sea.
• Swim in the great ocean as a womb to reconnect with your inner child, and heal yourself and your ancestral lineage.
• Gaze into a natural body of water holding labradorite, and ask the undines and water spirits to connect with you.
• Write a positive affirmation and place it under or on top of your water dispenser.
• Work with the moon, the principal of receptivity. Try using the Moon Kit Deluxe to aid in this process.

 

Lady of the Lake Holding Excalibur

 

 

Need material inspiration to work with Water? Shop our favorites below!

Water Candle for harnessing the positive elements of water and al water signs

Blue Cauldron to inspire watery vibes while burning your incense representing water, such as Myrrh.

Lions Paw Shell to carry jewels, intentions, incense and other treasures.

Love Ritual Kit to enhance your reception and perception of Love.

 

 

Can't find what you need? Shop all things in our Water collection!

 

 

 

 

______________________________________

Read more on astrology, horoscopes, occultism, magick & ritual on our blog, Esoteric Insights!

---

---

Also in Esoteric Insights