Commune With Water

To become an oracle of water, begin with the water in your own body. Begin deep within yourself to find your personal connection to water and spiral out from there like an ammonite.

In fact, consider the pre-historic ammonite, extinct 65 million years ago…beautiful cephalopods that were as large as three feet across and built their shells as they grew. Like their modern relative – the nautilus – they only lived in the outer chamber. Do you only live in your outer chambers, keeping everything on the surface? Do you ever visit the deep inner chambers?

Here is a powerful exercise that is part meditation, part journey, part ritual bath. It can help calm inner storms and distractions and help you begin a journey to better understand and become water.

Obviously, such meditations can and should eventually be done in or near a natural body of water, but this is a good basic starting place; it is more safe and private, and simply a much more accessible option for most people.

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  • Begin by making sure your bathtub is as clean as possible and fill it about halfway with warm, not hot, water. If you like, scent it with a few drops of lavender or your favorite essential oil.
  • Now create a sacred, peaceful space by cleansing as you normally do (for this meditation I recommend spritzing rose water* into the air) and lighting candles. Have a glass of cool water nearby for you to drink at the end of the meditation.
  • Get into the tub and lay down as comfortably as you can, making sure the water goes no higher than around your temples, so your ears are submerged.
  • Close your eyes and breathe slowly. Take your time. Do any calming or grounding breathing technique you are already familiar with. Or try inhaling slowly for four counts, hold the breath for four counts, exhale for four counts, and hold for four counts. Do this as many times as you feel you need to.
  • Feel the water. Listen to it. Focus on what you hear from the water itself, your heartbeat, any distant sounds echoing through the tub and the water.
  • Now very slowly and gently sway your head side-to-side through the water, feeling the movement of the water around your head, hearing the water move around you, feeling your hair move like seaweed beneath the waves. Do this as long as you care to, imagining being completely submerged deep beneath the water and moving fluidly as part of it.
  • Imagine yourself drifting down deep into a vast, dark ocean. Visualize a huge glowing ammonite approaching you from the abyss. Begin at its outer opening, letting the water pull you into it, and slowly begin to spiral inward to its deepest, innermost chamber. This is your deepest, innermost chamber. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it need? This is what you are here to discover.
  • Ask the ammonite what water has to teach you. Ask it what your spiritual, emotional, receptive, feminine side needs. What needs to be healed? What do you need to let go of? What do you need to know in order to grow? You may consider doing this exercise multiple times if you don’t get any or all of your answers at first.

When you feel you have finished, slowly spiral back out of the ammonite shell, drifting away from it, into the water, slowly rising back up to where you rest in your bathtub. Breathe normally, open your eyes and sit up slowly and carefully, as you may feel somewhat disoriented and/or lightheaded.

Have a few sips of the water you prepared earlier. Feel this water moving through you and refreshing you. Try to enjoy just a few minutes playing and relaxing in the water until you get out. Be sure to write down any answers or insights you received during this exercise.

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artist: Edmund Dulac

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