Water as surrender

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My swimmer, based on Picasso's/pastel on paper © 2011 Cathy Barney

Water, for me, really does have living qualities. It has taught me much about spirituality; particularly trust, patience, rhythm and surrender.

TRUST

To some degree, you do have to trust the water to hold you. You must believe that it will support you by giving yourself to it, without losing yourself in it – if that makes any sense. Something new is created between what the water offers and what we must give up. Together, this something between is formed.

PATIENCE

Water is 11 times denser than air, so we learn our bodies move and work differently here. We can feel less in control until we trust and practice this way of being. Parts come naturally, others are learned. Experiencing being in the water over time shapes the unnatural into the familiar and, in my case, beloved.

RHYTHM

Breath may be more important in water because we have to pay attention to it. It allows us to submerge for periods and keeps the fluidity in our movement when we are aware and using it purposefully. This combination of in sync breathing and movements creates a bodily rhythm that can become calming and meditative. I usually have to burn off some frustration and busy-mindedness first. When I find the balance and my rhythm, it is magical as I glide almost effortlessly along. Even the drag becomes part of the patterned movement.

SURRENDER

Describing how to surrender is difficult because it isn’t just giving in or up. This act is more creative than that. Surrender is, really, all of the above: trusting the water to hold you, patience in being in it and finding your rhythm. When you strike that balance, there is a newness in the space. All you and something else, merged as the boundaries between skin and water recede. Today as I was swimming, I noticed it comes as what’s inside myself fuses with what’s outside. And for me, that feels divine and requires me to let go of thinking and control.

The living water is life-giving, supportive, healing, renewing, creative, loving, challenging, strengthening, soothing, calming, discharging, yet also demands respect and gratitude.

This living water has taught me so much about my spirituality. It is a tactile way I experience the divine.

Dive in!

• What is my experience of water?

• How do I surrender?

• What similarities does that share with my experience of the divine?

• Where else do I surrender in my life?

• What new emerges when I do?

as I dance

down the steps,

I find myself

gliding off

under the ropes

gracefully,

headfirst and

without my arms

like a dolphin

dipping under one

lane barrier and

into the next

the invitation

fully accepted,

I dive right in

Loving tentacles gently holding

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Water/pastel on paper/Cathy Barney

W - A - T - E - R

Wasn't that the first word Helen Keller signed to her teacher, Anne Sullivan? The wonderful cool gush from the backyard pump prompted her to want to know what it was by name.

Water sparks the same reaction in me.

One of the recent gifts in my life has been the closing of the pool at my local gym for a couple of weeks for maintenance. Of course, I didn't initially see it as a gift. I was bent on finding somewhere else to swim because I knew I'd sink otherwise. I started goggling what other area gyms had pools, if they offered short-term memberships and considering my best option.

Then it hit, they all included some sort of trial by potential members for free, so I started making the rounds. First off was the most spa-like and the one I could least afford at three times the price of my current membership, which was about to expire. Ohhh, but it was wonderful. I could show up with nothing but my suit and everything (unlimited towels, shampoo, conditioner, soap and lotion) was supplied, including lap and warm-water pools, sauna, steam room, a luxurious locker room and free coffee. Next was an older, smaller and somewhat-aging facility with a more hotel-sized pool. Finally, an urban gym with a younger crowd, but a gleaming pool hardly used, steam room and sauna.

I received from one-day to one-month free trials at each of these. Of course, I had to endure the sales pitch over and over. Got to be a game with the manager at the urban gym; he knew I wasn't going to join and I knew that he knew.

Today, I went for the last time, even though my gym's pool has been open several weeks. I was lured by the empty pool and the heavenly steam room. All of that happening in the glorious water. It's enough to make the pain melt away if even temporarily. After a brisk swim and stretching, I lingered longer than usual in the steam, soaking up every morsel. I sat in lotus position, deeply inhaling and feeling the layers in me shift ... as if the steam had a healing life of its own. Then I lay down and felt the moist warmth invade my sacrum and lower back. Yummy. I took a hot shower and dried off in the sauna. I was going to make the most out of this last experience.

What is it about the water that speaks to me? It's aliveness? It's healing ability? The fact it renders one close to weightless? Or that it's 11 times denser than air, so is a great strengthener without risk of injury?

My recent astrological report said, for me, water and spirituality are connected. That did not come as a surprise. Often, as I tick off laps, I pray ... well, after burning off the stuff on my mind. It's as if I feel God's loving tentacles gently holding me, yet allowing me to move freely and make choices.

Here, nothing is a burden.

• How does water speak to me?
• What else has that effect on  me?
• Where and how do I receive healing?
• Where do I experience Spirit?
• Where do I feel the balance of being gently held and free?


that initial plunge
is so worth it
almost all weight
removed


and I feel strangely
freed, but also held


free to work through 
whatever, but held
close enough so as not
to drown


breathing deeply
dipping my head under
propelling myself as I
can nowhere else


I feel the energy
I receive it
expend it
thrive on it


and also
pray that it's
healing properties
are there for the next
soul

Somewhere deep within

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Seeing a physic for clarity? Who'd a thunk. Funkier yet, is my Quaker meeting sent me ... well, to scout out the fair as a potential place to staff a booth. It is the "Victory of Light" festival and Quakers believe that each of us contains God's light within. Many of us – Quaker or not, Christian or not – know it from experience.

I had always wanted to attend this event and this request sealed the deal. It also took the edge off of making it a personal journey, though it would become one. I was going as the observer.

As the observer, I was overwhelmed at the marketplace thick with readers, healers, therapists, sha-men and women, trinkets, crystals, books and anything metaphysical you can imagine. It all seemed too material upon first entrance.

I glanced at the schedule and one talk immediately jumped out at me: the past lives of Jesus. Having just come from an hour of worship, I was looking for something of depth, perhaps even familiar. I ducked in about two minutes late to hear a conversation about the many others Jesus was before he was, well, Jesus. Odd, I thought until I listened longer. The speaker was knowledgable, mentioning the Essenes, Gnostics, and Aramaic as being Jesus' original language. And then he spoke of Edgar Cayce, a name I could only vaguely recall. Cayce was a prominent last-century physic healer with a Christian tradition. Much of his work revolved around past lives. I was riveted, but a little uncomfortable. I had only toyed with the idea before.

My shamanic counselor has hinted that some of what I deal with may be "old" stuff. Now I was thinking that I should investigate this old stuff a bit. I purchased a report from the lecturer that combined my birth details (time, place, location) with readings Cayce had made for others with the same astrological data.

I am still bowled over by what it contained as well as its depth and completeness. I shared it with my longtime spiritual friend, who knows much more about metaphysics, and she was impressed.

I learned that my intertwined affinity for water and spirituality is natural because my moon is in Pisces ... ok, I don't really know what that means. In terms of the past, I have a connection to Atlantis. It is so strange that I felt called to Greece several years ago and chose Santorini and Crete. Some believe Atlantis excited between them. I was drawn to the sea around Santorini and created a ritual of leaving pain behind there because it was evident that, in this place, beauty arose out of chaos (a volcanic eruption that destroyed Santorini and may have caused the decline of the Minoan culture on neighboring Crete).

The reading affirmed and confirmed my calling to ministry in writing, one on one and in groups: exactly what I am doing! It pinpointed areas in which I am challenged and can grow and indicated Jesus is my best role model.

Venturing outside of my norm has opened new possibilities into self exploration and knowledge, shedding more light within. I don't believe this was a random experience.

• How do I experience the light within?
• When have I been called into something out of my comfort zone?
• How has that opened me?
• Opened my spiritual experience?
• In what ways do I see Jesus as model for my life?

darting in
wet from the rain
not knowing
what to expect


but being drawn
to Jesus


in the midst of
crystals, reflexology
and card readings


and finding myself
somewhere deep 
within

Traveling inside to get out

Do I spend too much time inside myself? I wondered earlier today. Is that necessarily a bad thing?

I had that thought at the beginning of my swim, for which I already felt out of kilter postponing it by several hours to [willingly] accommodate a sick child. I could tell I had a lot pent up that I needed to release into the water. I ticked off the first few laps, letting the thoughts fill me, then settle somewhere else. One of those was the initial question I posed.

Somehow that led to wanting to swim hard and see if my skin could permeate the water or vice versa and I could feel as if I were the water, not just cutting through it. It was odd, crazy, calm and totally sane all knotted together. My body raced almost as fast as I had let my mind early on. I kept thinking about what a friend had shared awhile back about going to the place between the thought clouds as opposed to the conventional wisdom to let your thoughts float away like clouds.

So, while I hammered away, sluicing the waves I was creating, I revved up to go between the clouds.  Liminal space, I thought. I almost got carried away, which is what I wanted. Yet a slim thread kept me connected to the lane in the pool inside the gym. I do close my eyes some to swim, but open them when I raise my head for air every fourth stroke. It ensures I am swimming straight and keeping in my lane. I think if I could have swum with my eyes closed the whole time, I may have made it. But, I came pretty darn close. 

It triggered something; perhaps, just endorphins, but I am still experiencing the aftershock. It is as if the unnecessary and negative tension in my body leeched into the water, replaced with a peaceful and constant energy – a healing source. Like I had to wear out the unhealthy stuff inside by some sort of physical trickery. Odd and crazy, huh? Yet, I feel totally sane and calm, blissful.

So I was totally inside myself, yet also outside. Perhaps not exactly one with the water, but somewhere between my body and the water.

Next time I want to cut or break that thread. What happens then?

• How often do I travel inside myself? 

• Is it my usual inclination or something I force myself to do?

• What happens when I do?

• Can I find a transcendent space, somewhere that belongs inside, yet outside?

• Do I counter that in time spent with others? 

disappointed

not to get

my usual

time

needing and

knowing

it would

come

maybe

the change

in

rhythm

and expectation

shaped

a different

experience

entirely

one

in

a place

between