Water Stories
As the heat of the summer arrives, our ocean friend crab (Cancer) arrives as a gentle reminder to tend to the deep waters of feeling. This Cancer new moon is an invitation to embody tenderness and vulnerability as we look at the stories that may be residing in our ocean.
In a mentorship program I was in last year with Lakota medicine woman Shayne Case, we took a journey around a sacred hoop (Cangleska Wakan), stopping to observe and feel into each direction/element, and it’s wise medicine. In Lakota tradition, the medicine of the water lives in the west and is associated with the autumn, feeling, bear and belonging. The “Trickster” or challenging energy within water is shame. I felt called to share some of the wisdom I learned within the water element, perhaps as a lighthouse for you to shine more awareness around your own connection, development and relationship with feeling.
Approach this wisdom knowing that water is in a constant state of change and movement, a place to honor the stories and needs of your waves rather than judging or assessing. This is a very much abbreviated exploration of water, so I invite you to add to any of these lists or compost things that do not feel resonate for you.
Healthy Signs of Water
Capacity for sexual satisfaction
Physical pleasure
General enjoyment of life
Comfort with intimacy (emotional, spiritual, physical)
Ability to move/accept change with grace/ease
Steadiness and clarity in emotional states
Healthy expression of pleasure and joy
Ability to nurture the self and others while maintaining sexual and emotional boundaries
A true sense of connection, to others, earth and own felt sense
Wounds of the Water
Tactile and sensate deprivation (touch)
Physical and emotional neglect
Enmeshment (loss of sense of self or sense of self blended with others)
Emotional incest (violations of boundaries around the development of a child’s emotion well being, causing confusion about the self and ones own needs and desires because it feels corded to the caretaker or parent)
Emotional abuse (gas lighting, withholding love, overbearing, covert violations)
Verbal, sexual or physical abuse
Religious or moral severity
No pleasure (withholding “treats”)
Rigidity
Pain (causes constriction in the body, especially around the sacral area, pelvis where the water element lives)
Language of the Wounded Water
“I don’t deserve”
“I am doing it wrong”
“I picked the wrong one”
“I can’t have what I want, need”
“I am not worth it“
“I am making it up”
Bringing Awareness to Water
After reading these lists, take a moment to check.
How am I feeling now?
Were there stories or experiences that certain descriptions brought to the surface?
Notice what is present.
Perhaps repeating these intentions to yourself:
“I have a right to feel my emotions.”
“My experience is valid”
“I deserve to feel pleasure”
Practice: Balancing Water Ritual
Fire can often be an helpful ally for moving through stuck emotions. Summer is the perfect time to explore Fire and Water rituals, we can use the heat of fire/summer/south to empower and purify our water/west/autumn. For this ceremony you will need an outdoor flame/fire of some kind, burnable paper, a journal and a glass of drinking water.
Identify a story/experience that affected you emotionally, in way that felt (or still feels) hurtful or harmful to your wellbeing. You might read through the list of “Wounds of the Water” within the blog post and see if stories float up related to the descriptions. You might also consider stories/experiencing you find yourself repeating to others, or circling in your thoughts that create anxiety or feelings of shame.
- Once you have identified a story that that feels draining, heavy, confusing, hurtful or activated in non pleasurable way, write the story/experience down on a burnable paper.
- After you finish writing down the story, identify a few difficult feelings and beliefs about yourself from within the story. For example, “I felt rejected and I believed that it was my fault for not doing the right thing.”
- Call in support. Inviting the healing wisdom of water, the purification of fire, the grounding of earth, and the movement of air. Ask your healed benevolent ancestors to be with you and any supportive guides or animal spirits.
- Release the story to the fire, visualize yourself as separate from the version of you in the story. Bring to life that version of you, at whatever age you were and imagine them sitting with you. Ask them if there is anything they would like to share with you, allow them to have a voice if they like.
- Speak to them as you would dear friend, offering support that is in alignment with things that you would rather feel and believe about yourself. An example might be:
"I'm so sorry you went through that experience, you didn't deserve or cause this to happen. May you feel your power, may you receive the support you deserve from trustworthy people."
- Even just offering them a hug or a beam of love from your heart if words don't feel right. You might also ask them if there is any way you can support them now.
- When you feel ready to end your ritual, express gratitude to that version of yourself. Pick up your glass of water, and as you hold it, charge your water with supportive words or images such as “My experience is valid, I deserve to feel.” “I invite connection to pleasure.” If words don’t feel correct, use your mind’s eye/imagination to visualize yourself in empowered and receptive to pleasurable feeling. Drink your water, with the intention of drinking all of that support into your being.
- When you feel complete, take some time to journal around your experience.