[Extract from a work in progress.]
Slipping into the lake intending to drown, a birth in reverse, she returns to source. She has no fear of the depths. It is the shallows that frighten her. She embraces the blackness, bitter cold lapping the nape of her neck. A cold kiss. Ice teeth snapping shut, sealing her into a liquid coffin of numb. Black is the warmest colour when you want to forget.
Saw tooth pain of a lacerated back. Saw tooth wounding witnessing rape. The pain of ice water is a relief from all that.
Below, slippery eels, the silt of the river bed and life ebbing away. Above, life and a slither of dawn reflecting on water. Surrender. Anguish. Time slowing down. She invites stagnation and decay to flow into her lungs.
Hypothermia is red, blue and black. Red is a broken heart. Blue is a weak pulse. Black is consciousness slipping away. Near death experience opens the mind. Held by the water and dreaming of death she floats through the portal to connect with wild woman consciousness because this is where the wisdom and memory of drowned women are stored. Water is a sentient being. Water is a battery, a resonant library, an Akashic Record flowing with consciousness.
Woman on land, seal in the sea, ancient tales of Selkies make sense to her now.
“Be still,” whispers the Selkie, “I’ll stay with you a while.”
On the way down she meets Ophelia. Haunting eyes staring upwards. Waterlogged dress weighing her down. Ophelia is dying an art establishment death…. a death in turquoise, encircled with water lilies!
Our shero floats face down, arms out stretched, lake bed slipping away, sea weed hair flowing all around her. She is out of her depth and her screams are silent. It is very quiet and still down there!
Part bird, part woman, part fish, the tug of love and loss as woeful melody unites all women, for this is where the Sirens are and they won’t let her drown. Where there is water there is life.
“Where there is love there is life.” – Mahatma Gandhi.
Down here the Sirens sing songs of love, loss and fear as emotion washes over them. The river’s soul melody resonates because when one woman is violated we all feel violated. Deep in our hearts all women know the patriarch has colonised our bodies and this is why we respond to the Siren’s sigh.
The Siren’s sigh is death and darkness and time standing still, a place of reckoning, before a painful rebirth. It’s an amniotic blackness where ideas are born. It’s a portal to wisdom through a veil of mist. This precious water, the elixir of life, brings life to all it touches, awakening seeds. Seeds of consciousness. Seeds of resistance! Seeds of saying NO!
Tales of Swan Maidens swirl at the surface. An ‘amorous voyeur’, let’s call him ‘sex pest’, has stolen the Swan Maiden’s wings and is hiding in the bushes watching her bathe. Trapped in the water, she urges us to strap our wings on and rise up in resistance.
Head of a woman, tail of a fish, the Mermaid understands human emotion.
“Trust the process,” she murmurs, “I know it has been hard for you.”
Part woman, part dragonfly, water nymphs play in the water reeds, reminding us of our daughters. We cannot abandon them now. We must return to the surface and connect with the spirit of the rescued dragged onto land. Breath in. Breath out. Waterlogged lungs. Oxygen for the blood. Calm for the nervous system. Fear of life overcome!
She connects to the spirit of menopausal women who have returned to the ocean. Women who embrace a cold north sea, anticipating skin against water, because they know it is the right place to be. Feeding on cold water endorphins they suffer bouts of extreme happiness. Buffeted by waves they enter the sea with a sense of of naughtiness. It’s a body reset. A cold water buzz. A cure all. Bliss. An antidote to flushing. A balance for the nervous system.
We women are creatures of cycles. We belong to the great watery vastness, swaying with the tides, swelling with the moon and moving in waves. Returning to the sea, when our own cycles are over, feels like coming home.
“Yes, we did many things, then – all
Beautiful…” – Sappho, Come Close.
When women unite, even in spirit, something beautiful happens. There is joy in sorrow. Power in vulnerability. Strength in unity. And freedom in acceptance!
One day all women will return from the ponds to impart their wisdom.
“Granddaughter we do hear you calling us.”
So what became of the women who were murdered in the waters? The witches and healers? The crones and the brewers? The midwives and the pagans? The sick, the old and the ugly? The rich women whose land they seized? The women who spoke out? The cat owners? The women who annoyed their husbands? The Women whose intuition was turned against them? The women who were forced into the Swimming Test and ducking-stool?
“Let’s strip them naked, shave their heads and strap them to the ‘stool of repentance’ with iron bands. Let’s dunk them in the pond so the watery womb of imagination turns on them.”
Guilty if she rejects the baptismal water and floats. Innocent if she drowns. See how it works? They set impossible rules for games we could never win. No wonder trauma is still our default setting. No wonder the Siren’s sigh!
I wonder how many of us ordinary women would have been ‘scolded as cuckolds’ and drowned by the mob if we’d been living then.
The patriarch used holy water as a persecutory device. They turned water wisdom into a judge and used it to absolve themselves of their sadistic, voyeuristic pleasure of watching acts of social humiliation, torture and brutality. They watched women drown and blamed the women and the water, not themselves.
The Siren’s sigh is a powerful lament, feared because it speaks the truth. Injustice flows through her. It is memory in a song. We women are the wisdom keepers. We must sing to the water to purify her and ourselves. We must make self-care a priority. Like the river, we must learn where we came from, what we have flowed through, and where we are going.
In the water, ideas gestate. We must protect the water. The woman’s water wisdom has spoken to us.
Selkies… Powerful post and oh so true…