The archetype of Water as our Authenticity

Water is essential for life. And water is also essential as an archetypal invocation. Water deities are present in traditions across the world. We've got Neptune, for example, the goddess Aapah in the Indian tradition, who later morphed into the masculine deity of Varuna.

 What is really interesting about water is that it holds the archetypal invocation of consciousness. And it suggests that this great mystery of consciousness, the source, from where we all come, is not actually very distant to us. We live on a planet that is mostly composed of water, we see oceans, and water is also the greater part of our own bodies.

In the tradition of yoga, the philosophy of yoga, which suggests an archetypal invocation of the body, water is the invocation between the hips, the second chakra of the body. And interestingly, this chakra is also called the foundation of the self. The self here, we're not talking about the psychological self, but we're talking about the primordial self, the self, that is our authenticity, which is before we come into narratives about ourselves. So it is that part that really, where we are elemental, where our substance both in terms of matter, and consciousness, which in the end in archetypal traditions is the same thing. Matter is sentience. And that elemental level where we are made of the earth, water, fire, in the sky, like everything around us, that level of authenticity is something that is very proximal to us. As water we can see it in the oceans around us, and we can experience it in our own body. It is not located somewhere in a distant galaxy or somewhere in a heaven that is far away from us, but it is very intimate to us.

The thing about authenticity is that it is not available to thought, because if it is that part of ourselves that comes before the story and the narrative, it also comes before word and thought. And so authenticity is not what is given to us. It is not our purpose or meaning, or what we should do in the world that is coming from the external paradigms of the world. But it is something that must be excavated from within ourselves. And in that sense, authenticity is mysterious, it is unknowable.

So, in the archetypal tradition, there is often this archetype of a Makara, as it's called in Indian tradition, Makara is this mysterious deep sea creature, which is a confluence of many different creatures. So for example, a makara can be a bit of a crocodile, a bit of an elephant, a snake, and a lion. And what it does is confounds our efforts to define it. We can't categorize or find a name, or just position or box, this creature anywhere. And that is so beautifully, the nature of our own authenticity.

It is that which defies categorizations and defies definitions and labels, and it has that dimension of ourselves. And it is terrifying to us. Because we don't like things that we can't define, and we can't control with words or thoughts. And when that is intimate in us, when we have this sensation, that there is something in us, which is eluding all of those stories and narratives, it can be really terrifying, we are desperate to try to bring it into some kind of definition, into a way in which it can fit into a label or a role or, or a task or a purpose.

 There is this elusive quality just like the makara to our own authenticity, and yet, it can definitely be expressed, and it must be expressed. Because otherwise, there is this deluge that completely overwhelms us. And the archetypal dancer was called the Apsara, which means of the waters that which can flow in the waters. So dance in a ritual tradition was this flow, this mystery of the great waters brought into manifestation and expression.

I think of it as someone riding the waves as a surfer. When I look at surfers, it's like this combination of exhilaration and terror. And dance was that kind of a ritual, it's surfing that wave of our authenticity, which holds this mysterious makara and doesn't ever need to be labeled or, or approved or given to us by anybody else, but that simply in its expression, will connect us to the authenticity of Nature itself.

And this is why this expression is important, because Nature is always expressing Her authenticity, the tree is itself the flower is itself the soil is itself and what we are asked to do is also at that elemental level, to simply allow this expression of who we are, that authenticity within us and in doing that is when we fall right into that authenticity of Nature herself. And we feel that we are in Nature, rather than that we are outside observing nature or managing nature or saving Nature, but that we are just dancing Nature, just like everything else in Nature, dancers their own authenticity.