Curiosity

may have killed the cat; more likely
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems,
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
leave home, smell rats, have hunches
do not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die—
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.
Only the curious
have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.

Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible,
are changeable, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.
Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth. And what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.

This is probably the biggest one, and in some ways almost encompasses all of the others. I’m not quite sure how to say this without sounding silly, but: I want to use my resources in ways that will make me happy. My family didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up, and one of the things that I learned from that was what I guess you’d call an attitude of scarcity. Aside from a few indulgences, I generally don’t buy things that I don’t absolutely need, even if I want them or know they would make me happier. I want to learn to use what I have for my own happiness. Obviously I don’t mean to be reckless with my finances, but I know that I can afford to focus more on my own happiness without getting anywhere near dangerous territory.

This really didn’t happen. Our finances took a turn for the worse this summer, and I’ve had to focus on being more frugal, instead. I’m not too unhappy about missing this goal, because it was for a good reason. But this is still something I need to work on in the future, once things improve again.

I want to finally make an altar. I haven’t had one in a long time, partly because of the broom closet issue and because I didn’t want to have to explain it to my partner. I realized in meditation yesterday that I feel ready to deal with this, and I want an altar as a focus of my spiritual work. This is big for me. So now I’m on the lookout for the perfect little table. I don’t really have anything I can put it on yet, so I have to get that before anything else.

I didn’t do this, either. I did talk to my partner, and I think I could do it, but because of the financial issues, I haven’t felt much like shopping, and without me looking for it, the perfect little table has not appeared.

I came to this one accidentally, but I think it will be valuable. My laptop power cord died the week before last, and I had to make do on one battery charge until they could send me a new one. And I realized: I actually really liked being offline. I cleaned my house. I read books. I spent time with my partner. Most importantly, I stopped wasting so much time on my computer—something I’m really bad about. So I’ve decided to institute what I’m calling “unplugged Saturdays.” I’m going to keep my computer off, unless I have a real need, all day on Saturdays, and focus on offline life. Yesterday was the first one that I did by choice, and it went pretty well. We’ll see how this goes. I might decide that once a week is too much.

I did this one faithfully for a while, but ultimately I decided it was a failed experiment. I felt that I was losing connection with distant friends that I only communicate with over the internet, and I realized that I need my computer for productive work, too (in fact, this is part of why I had such a long blog hiatus!) I think I’m back to wasting too much time, though, so I still need to find a happy medium.

I want to actively pursue creativity. For me this involves getting back into playing music, and getting out my camera and taking photos. Somehow I’ve lost touch with my creative side, and these are outlets that I have some experience with and know I can do.

I played a little bit of music, but otherwise, no, not really. No excuses here; I just didn’t do it.

This isn’t a seed so much as an existing plant that I’ve been tending, but I want to recommit to my spiritual work and my daily practice. This has been really great for me and I want to make sure not to let it fall by the wayside.

I actually did this one! I haven’t been doing perfectly, but I’ve been on a generally upward trajectory. I’m feeling much more capable of integrating my daily practice into my life, even if I’m busy.

I guess my goals were too ambitious for a single summer—well, that and life threw me a curveball or two. My positive take on this is that my goals take longer to manifest than a single growing season. I’m going to take this as an opportunity to reaffirm my commitment to creating an altar—I know it doesn’t need to cost much—and to creativity. Bring on the dark season!

First, a note on the name of the holiday in question. The holiday that modern Pagans celebrate on August 1 is called either Lammas or Lughnasadh. “Lammas” comes from Old English and means “loaf mass,” referring to the harvest of grain for bread. “Lughnasadh” is the Celtic name and comes from the god Lugh, who was said to have started the holiday as a tribute to his foster mother, Tailtiu. It seems like a lot of Pagans online prefer the name Lughnasadh, but I personally tend to call it Lammas. No deep religious meaning there—it’s just that my path is not particularly Celtic and I always have to look up the spelling of Lughnasadh. I can spell Lammas!

When I think of Lammas, I think of my celebration one year, when I lived on the edge of the woods. For Lammas, I went out into the woods, and sat on the edge of a field, in the grass and the heat, and just thought about the seasons, and the elements, and the idea of harvest. I wouldn’t really call it a ritual, and I don’t know why that simple moment has stuck with me so strongly. Something about that moment really speaks to my understanding of Lammas, I guess.

That moment happened in the Midwest, where I lived at the time, where I lived for most of my Pagan life. All of my memories of the holidays are tied in with my experiences there, even as I work on building new memories, and so part of what Lammas means to me is almost unbearably hot and humid weather.

Now I live halfway across the country, and here we don’t have the hot and humid summers that I grew used to there (grudgingly). Lammas this year was chilly and overcast. It was hard for me to feel like it was really Lammas. In a way, it wasn’t the Lammas I was used to, almost not the same holiday that I celebrated quietly on the edge of a field in the searing sun and the humidity.

A sense of place is important in Paganism as I understand it. Here I am, now, on the Northwest edge of this country, where you might need a jacket on Lammas to protect you from the chill. I need to be in tune with that experience, with the turn of the seasons as it happens here, not the less subtle experience of the place I came from—right?

Well, yes. But I don’t think that’s the whole story. This year, I found myself feeling a bit disconnected, thinking that Lammas is somehow really a hot and sweltering holiday—and beating myself up a bit for not being in touch with my real surroundings. But that’s not really fair (as beating myself up for something usually isn’t). Yes, I absolutely do need to be in tune with this landscape, with the turning of the seasons as it happens here. But that doesn’t mean that I have to discount my inner landscape, and Midwestern summers are part of that inner landscape. How could they not be, after I spent so many years there? There, Lammas is hot and humid, dry grass, tall corn, the ground spiky and golden brown, the air thick and heavy, foreshadowing a thunderstorm. Here, Lammas is chilly air off the ocean, grey skies, long grey-green days, light mist—and I’m sure more experiences that I have yet to discover. Lammas can be both—should be both—is both, in my experience, in the landscape of my world. There’s no reason that I need to lose touch with my history, with my past experience, as I learn more about my present experience.

I am trying to build connections to this land. But I still have, will always have in my heart connections to the land in other places that I have lived. It makes no sense to deny that, or to suggest that one experience is better than the other. I need to acknowledge my past and my present, because they are both part of my inner landscape.

I don’t know why it is, but it really does seem that something is in the air, bringing us all out of wherever we’ve been hiding. Maybe it’s that breath of fresh air that the autumn seems to bring with it. It still feels like summer here—we’re having a bit of a heatwave—but the shortening days are becoming obvious.

I’m honestly not surprised that I disappeared, although I’m a bit disappointed with myself that it was for so long. I already knew that I am not very good at blogging when I don’t have some sort of practice to tie it to, some discipline that keeps me coming back regularly. The SpiritsCast 101 course was that motivation for this blog in the beginning. I obviously don’t know yet if the course is coming back, but I hope I’ll be able to keep up the blog a bit even without it. I’m sure my posts won’t be as frequent, but my goal is not to disappear again for months at a time. I have a few posts in my head, plus some that have been in my drafts for a while (one since November! I should really finish that one up, or give up on it).

I am still looking for meaningful spiritual community and for depth in my own practice, and that’s why I think it’s worth trying to put my words out there.

So where have I been hiding? Since I left you, I’ve been keeping up a daily practice, with variable success (more about this later, I hope). I’ve been struggling with some of the same issues I’ve talked about here in the past—with feeling like my spiritual path is invalid, loneliness, worries about rejection by a community that I honestly haven’t really tried to join.

That said, I have reached a bit of a milestone. I’ve been seriously pursuing my spirituality for a year now, and although my problems haven’t magically gone away, I feel much more centered and much more capable of seeing where my emotional reactions come from and changing them before they get out of control. I still have a lot to work on, but I’m encouraged when I see my own progress.

Goals: Update my blogroll; put up my post about Lammas before Mabon!

Anyway, I still exist; do you? =) What have you been up to?

I hung out with some friends last weekend. This particular group gossips a lot, and this time was no exception. We talked about pretty much everyone that we all know who wasn’t there at the time. I really thought nothing of it at the time; this is how we normally interact.

Saturday night, I dreamed that someone else I know said something hurtful and negative about an old friend of mine.

My Tarot card of the day was the Lovers. The Lovers card often has an undercurrent of the idea of choice, and in the Kazanlar Tarot, which I’m currently using, there is a very explicit sense that the card refers to doing what is right rather than what is easy or attractive at the moment. Thinking about that, in connection with the dream, made me realize that I needed to look seriously at the gossip.

This was reinforced when, on Pombagira’s recommendation, I listened to the first episode of Standing Stone & Garden Gate. Their “Rants, Raves, and Reviews” section was about—guess what—gossip in the Pagan community.

I had never really thought of gossip as a serious problem in my life. Sure, I do it—but, I rationalized, doesn’t everyone? And I have always tried really hard to tell the truth as far as I know it, and not to say anything negative about people I genuinely like and care about.

Now I realize that’s not enough. It ties in, I think, with one of Scott Cunningham’s “13 Goals of a Witch,” which Feithline covered in The Dark Side of Fey: Keep your words in good order. If we believe that our words have power, then what does it mean to say something negative about someone? Even if we don’t necessarily believe that our words have any particular special magical power, what does it do to our perceptions if we fixate on the negative about someone? I’ve witnessed this myself: when a group of people decides collectively that they don’t like someone, suddenly they can’t seem to say anything good about that person. Indeed, it usually seems as if they can’t even see anything good about that person. That can have negative effects on that person; I also doubt that it’s good for the people who are fixating on the negative.

From now on, before I say anything about another person, I want to ask myself, “Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?” This series of questions is fairly common, and Google is failing to tell me its origin, at least in a quick search. Whoever came up with it, though, had the right idea, I think. I’m not saying, by the way, that the answer to all of those questions has to be yes before I’ll speak. I will happily say things that are true and kind but not necessary, and less happily say things that are true and necessary but not kind. But I do want to use this filter before I pass things on.

I admit that I was puzzled about why this issue came up for me now. I do definitely have room to improve, but I am not a huge gossip and I don’t think I’m very often hurtful. If, before my dream, I had listed personal traits that I need to work on, this would have been there, but not high on the list. I think the reason that it’s coming up now has to do with needing to understand that I have power over my own world. If my friends are sometimes excessively negative, then I can be a positive force. I can change my experience of the world, and hopefully also others’, for the better. This goes way beyond gossip, but gossip is a place to start that’s easy to understand and easily applicable.

• This is probably the biggest one, and in some ways almost encompasses all of the others. I’m not quite sure how to say this without sounding silly, but: I want to use my resources in ways that will make me happy. My family didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up, and one of the things that I learned from that was what I guess you’d call an attitude of scarcity. Aside from a few indulgences, I generally don’t buy things that I don’t absolutely need, even if I want them or know they would make me happier. I want to learn to use what I have for my own happiness. Obviously I don’t mean to be reckless with my finances, but I know that I can afford to focus more on my own happiness without getting anywhere near dangerous territory.
• I want to finally make an altar. I haven’t had one in a long time, partly because of the broom closet issue and because I didn’t want to have to explain it to my partner. I realized in meditation yesterday that I feel ready to deal with this, and I want an altar as a focus of my spiritual work. This is big for me. So now I’m on the lookout for the perfect little table. I don’t really have anything I can put it on yet, so I have to get that before anything else.
• I came to this one accidentally, but I think it will be valuable. My laptop power cord died the week before last, and I had to make do on one battery charge until they could send me a new one. And I realized: I actually really liked being offline. I cleaned my house. I read books. I spent time with my partner. Most importantly, I stopped wasting so much time on my computer—something I’m really bad about. So I’ve decided to institute what I’m calling “unplugged Saturdays.” I’m going to keep my computer off, unless I have a real need, all day on Saturdays, and focus on offline life. Yesterday was the first one that I did by choice, and it went pretty well. We’ll see how this goes. I might decide that once a week is too much.
• I want to actively pursue creativity. For me this involves getting back into playing music, and getting out my camera and taking photos. Somehow I’ve lost touch with my creative side, and these are outlets that I have some experience with and know I can do.
• This isn’t a seed so much as an existing plant that I’ve been tending, but I want to recommit to my spiritual work and my daily practice. This has been really great for me and I want to make sure not to let it fall by the wayside.

I was raised Christian. But unlike some Pagans who have religious horror stories from their upbringings, I still really respect my mom’s brand of Christianity. She taught us that all religions teach more or less the same messages of kindness. She taught us that all people are worthy of respect, regardless of what they look like or what they believe. She taught us that the Bible contains a lot of valuable messages, but that it was written by human beings, in a defined historical time, and is not literally true. All of these are things that I still believe.

My first ever exposure to Paganism came in the person of a friend of my mom’s when I was very young. This friend worshiped the Goddess, and my mom thought that was silly because she doesn’t believe that Deity has gender. To her, talking about replacing God with Goddess required thinking that Deity has a body and genitals. She prefers talking about a God that is beyond gender, and uses masculine pronouns and the word “father” for historical reasons. So I grew up thinking that Goddess worship was not wrong exactly, but sort of silly.

Then in high school I was doing a project on herbalism with a friend. We met at my house, because my mom had some books on the medicinal uses of herbs, and my friend said she would bring a book on magical uses. I had no idea that anyone seriously practiced magic in this day and age and thought it was some sort of joke or maybe a system for writers of fantasy novels. But my friend brought The Spiral Dance to my house, and we used the correspondences in the back for our project.

Not long after that I started to realize that what other people meant when they said they were Christian was not always what we meant in my family. The Christians who got a lot of media attention tended to be intolerant people that I didn’t want to be associated with. People in my school who made a big deal of their Christian faith were much the same. I still considered myself a Christian, but I stopped wearing a cross or mentioning my religion publicly.

Our church had Sunday school classes for all ages, and I went to the teen one. One day, the teachers announced that we were going to talk about heaven and hell. They had the class list famous people who were dead, and say where we thought they were. I was horrified. I believed strongly that these things are not for us to judge, that they were up to God and that it wasn’t right for us to speculate.

I told my mom, and she agreed and pulled me out of the teen Sunday school into the adult Sunday school, which was more like a Bible study. But the damage had already been done. Once I started thinking about it, I started to wonder how God could send anyone to hell to be tortured for eternity. I had been taught “God is love.” We sang “Jesus loves me.” How could a loving God sentence anyone, even Hitler, to an eternity of torture? You could torture Hitler a million years for every person who died in the Holocaust, and it would still be only the tiniest sliver of eternity. The God that I believed in wouldn’t do that—and yet the idea of hell couldn’t be blamed on other Christians, people whose ideas I could disagree with. It was right there in church doctrine.

So that was the point when I started to question my faith and research other religions. Now, this was the late 1990s, and one of the things that I did was to spend time in religion chat rooms. (What can I say, I was a teenage dork.) Chat rooms were a little different then than they are now (or were last I checked). There were few if any bots to disrupt the conversation, and no voice or video chatting. So you could go onto any old chat room on yahoo and expect to actually have a conversation.

Now, what I realized pretty quickly was that there were three main types of people in the religion chat rooms of the time. The first was the Christians. I just said there were few if any bots at the time, but many of the Christians in these chat rooms could have easily been replaced by bots. When they weren’t spouting random Bible verses, they were telling us we were all going to hell. Generally in all caps. These were the kind of Christians that I was mortified to be associated with even before I started questioning my own Christianity.

Then there were the atheists. They generally wanted to argue, and gave off a vibe of trying to prove how much smarter they were than everyone else.

And then there were the Pagans. They were friendly and pleasant. They seemed to hang out in chat rooms because they (gasp) wanted to chat, not to convert people or put anyone down. They said “mm” and “mp” and “bb” to everyone (that would be “merry meet” and “merry part” and “blessed be.”) They were the people I wanted to be associated with. So I started to research Paganism. I went to the public library and checked out the only book that they had on Paganism, which turned out to be The Spiral Dance—the same book my friend had brought over to my house some time before. Something spoke to me from that book, and I realized that my mom might have been missing something about Goddess worship.

I can’t say precisely what it was that called to me. I liked the idea of a lack of dogma. I liked the idea of being able to create something that made sense to me, without being tied to centuries of church doctrine, not to mention the Bible. I liked the idea of being my own religious authority. I liked the idea of a religion that was intimately tied in with the rhythms of the Earth. I liked the idea of a religion that was generally not used to justify political stances that I despised. So I started quietly considering myself Pagan, reading every book I could find on the topic, and practicing what I could.

Then I went to college. I had high hopes of being able to come out of the broom closet at that point. I knew my college had an active Pagan group. But I was really, really shy and insecure, and my first group of friends in college were atheists who actively made fun of Pagans. So I shoved myself as far as I could go into the broom closet and called myself an agnostic (which was more or less true, but nowhere near the whole story).

And that’s been the public face of my spirituality ever since, pretty much. I still worry a lot about being judged. Some part of me really wants the approval of atheists, of my college friends and people like them. I’m sort of afraid of being ripped to shreds intellectually by people like the atheists from the chat rooms. I don’t like it when people think I’m stupid or ignorant. I know it’s silly for me to want their approval, but some part of me does, so I have a really hard time talking about spirituality.

But I still feel this powerful draw to spirituality, and specifically Pagan spirituality. Maybe the word “calling” would even be appropriate. I’ve tried to ignore it for years at a time, but I keep coming back. There is clearly something here for me, and I’m going to have to live with the mockery of the atheists.

Again, I should put the disclaimer here that I’m not an expert on any of this. Hopefully Monkey will correct me if I get the geology wrong, at least. =)

Even astronomers are focused on trying to find water, or evidence that there used to be water, elsewhere in the Universe. They’ve found small quantities of water on both the Moon and Mars, and are focusing a lot of energy on trying to learn whether Mars used to have bodies of liquid water. There’s news about the water on the Moon that just came out today. So why spend so much time worrying about water in space? Life as we know it requires water. That doesn’t mean that there’s life anywhere there’s water, but if there’s no water then there’s no life as we know it.

This goes back to the idea of the womb that I touched on earlier. Water is necessary for life as we understand it. (I keep putting that disclaimer in there because of course if there is life outside the Earth, we have no idea what it will be like. Maybe it won’t need water—but that would require us to radically revamp our understanding of life itself.)

Back on Earth, 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water. Water carved the Grand Canyon, and millions of years before that the rock that makes up the canyon was the debris on the bottom of the ocean floor. That has to do with the power of the Earth element as much as Water, of course, through the power of plate tectonics that throws up what used to be the seafloor onto the tops of mountains—but as I understand it, we wouldn’t have sedimentary rocks like sandstone and limestone if there were no oceans. We’d still have rocks, but not the same kinds.

97% of the water on Earth is saltwater, primarily in the oceans. That doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is that of the freshwater, only 0.3% is surface water, in lakes, rivers, and swamps. The rest is mainly divided between icecaps and glaciers, and groundwater. When I think of visiting the Great Lakes, where the water extends as far as the eye can see, it’s humbling to think that that’s really a very tiny proportion of the Earth’s water supply.

And people desperately need fresh water, both for our own use and for agriculture. Water rights are a huge bone of contention in the southwest U.S., both at the small level among individuals and at the larger level among communities and even states. I was personally appalled when I flew out of the Phoenix airport once and saw that almost every house, there in the desert, had a swimming pool in the backyard. That’s how they use their water, this incredibly precious fresh water that people and their crops desperately need?

(And yet that comment is a bit hypocritical of me, because I am a big fan of long showers. I know I should be better about conserving water, but it’s not easy. I imagine that after a hot and sweaty summer day in Phoenix, jumping into your own swimming pool would feel pretty good, so it’s hard to judge. On the other hand, I am definitely aware of my privileged position here, and realize that I need to cut down on my water consumption.)

Anyway, back to the science of water. I’ve already said that I don’t really understand the tides. It boggles my mind that the water level could have been 10 feet different from 8:00 this morning to 3:30 this afternoon—but it apparently was. Even more amazing is that it’s the moon that does it. The moon, which looks so small and peaceful in the sky, the moon that I look up to and sometimes pray to, the moon that has only tiny and recently discovered amounts of water on its own surface. The moon pulls the water in the vast expanses of ocean here and there, back and forth, toward the land where I stand and away from it. I find it really hard to comprehend fully. It’s not magical, and it’s not a mystery (except to me and others who haven’t put in the effort to really understand); it’s just one of the many wonders of the natural world.

Then there’s the water cycle, in which water evaporates from surface bodies of water, condenses into clouds, and falls as rain elsewhere. This is another one of those things that humans rely on but can’t control and sometimes barely understand. We’re getting better at understanding the weather, and we can talk about El Niño and La Niña events, but we still can’t say with much certainty whether it’s going to rain tomorrow. (Looking out the window right now, though, I vote no; it’s gorgeous and clear here today.) And rain is vitally important to our ability to grow food and other aspects of our survival. Too little rain can be devastating, but so can too much—think of mudslides in California.

So what does all of this mean? Water is vitally important to us as living beings and to the Earth. I’m not sure I can derive any particular spiritual lessons from all of this, except a sense of wonder in the natural world and awe for what we have. But I think that’s enough of a spiritual lesson on its own.

(The facts in this post are mostly from the wikipedia article on water. The image, as usual, is from wikimedia, and was taken by Apollo 17. And yes, I realize that it actually shows at least three of the four elements, and you could probably include Fire as well since the Sahara is in the picture.)

The trees are in bloom outside, I’m working on cleaning my house and tending my houseplant, and I feel like I’m finally starting to feel the quickening that Feithline talked about in the most recent SpiritsCast episode. Yes, I can do this, I can feel my soul and I can be myself.

I haven’t done a full Ostara ritual yet, although I’m hoping to tonight. I did recognize the holiday in my meditation last night. I’m not really big on a lot of formal ritual, so that may be the extent of it; we’ll see.

I’m still trying to think about the questions that Feithline asked in preparation for the next 101 segment, about what I want to plant this spring to harvest this fall. I’m not sure I want anything new in my life over this growing season, but I want to reaffirm my commitment to the things I’m already trying to do. I think I’m tending perennials this year in my metaphorical garden! =)

I also still want to get 1-2 more posts on water out here before the next 101. I’m definitely a bit embarrassed that what was supposed to take me one month took me three, but that’s actually very much like how this winter has gone for me. Anyway, look for those posts soon.

I hope you all had a blessed Equinox, whichever one you are celebrating! How did you spend it? Did you do anything special?

So, as I think most of us know, the chemical formula for water is H₂O, meaning that each molecule of water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, bonded together. Because of the way that these bonds work, the specific properties of oxygen and hydrogen, and the placement of the electrons, the two hydrogen atoms aren’t directly across from each other on either side of the oxygen atom, but they’re at about a 105° angle from each other. Again because of the chemical properties of these things, the hydrogen atoms tend to have more of a positive charge, while the oxygen tends to have a negative charge. So one side of the molecule is more positive, and the other is more negative (in the chemical/electrical sense). That makes water a polar molecule, which is the source of some of its chemical properties.

That’s why oil and water don’t mix. In the world of chemical/electrical polarity, opposites attract, so the positive hydrogen side of one water molecule likes to interact with the negative oxygen side of another, and vice versa. Fats and oils are nonpolar molecules, so they don’t have those positive and negative charges distributed around them, and they can’t interact that way. So water prefers to interact with itself and excludes the fats. Things that are soluble in water, on the other hand, have that polar property, so they can interact the same way.

So what does that mean for the spiritual side of water? Are there any spiritual lessons—or just life lessons—that we can learn from all of this? Well, some things just don’t mix—they’re incompatible by nature. But you can’t actually avoid either oil or water in your life. You need both in everything from salad dressing to your own body. Obviously too much fat is bad for you, but fats do play a key role in your biology. So we have to come up with ways to deal with or even use that incompatibility. You shake your salad dressing well to mix it before you pour it on your salad. Your body uses a layer of fat, in cell membranes, to keep the inside of your cells separate from the outside.

The lesson I can see in all this is that there can be two aspects of your life that you need both of, but which are incompatible or don’t mix. Instead of trying to give one of them up, you can work around or even use that incompatibility. I’m still trying to work through this idea and see how it applies to my own life, but I think there’s a useful lesson there.

Water is known as the “universal solvent,” because, well, it’s good at dissolving things. The term is a bit of a misnomer, though, because as discussed above, there are definitely plenty of substances that don’t dissolve in water. Still, this is at base what gives water its cleansing power. A lot of things wash off with water. For things that don’t, we use soap or detergent, which is partly polar and partly nonpolar to bridge the divide.

I see a metaphor here for what people call the collective unconscious, or universal consciousness. When something dissolves in water, it loses its individuality and becomes part of a greater whole. The water that comes out of my tap contains chloride and fluoride and who knows what else, but when I look at it, I see water. Water subsumes everything else and takes it into itself. That’s something like what I think I believe happens when we die—we lose our individuality and become part of the greater whole. And, at least if you believe Jung about the concept of the collective unconscious, maybe we aren’t as separate and individual as we think even during life. Maybe there’s a way to tap into the collective knowledge of the human race, like tapping into the water of an underground aquifer.

Finally, I should mention the three phases of water. Water is liquid at room temperature, solid as ice below a certain temperature, and a gas above a certain temperature. The three phases seem very different, but water isn’t fundamentally changed between them. Ice is just a more ordered form, and water vapor is less ordered. The existence of three phases isn’t unique to water—most chemical substances have similar properties—but water is the only one where we can regularly experience all three phases in our lives.

This might be a little too tenuous, but I wonder if you couldn’t draw a parallel to the idea of the Triple Goddess. Ice as the Crone (cold, harsh, death, winter); liquid water as the Mother (life-giving, all of the womb ideas that I talked about in the last post); vapor as the Maiden (light, energetic, in motion? I don’t see this one as easily). Or alternatively, you could include the fourth phase of matter, plasma, which occurs at even higher temperatures (inside the sun, for one), and connect the phases of matter to the four elements. Solid = earth, liquid = water, gas = air, plasma = fire. I wonder if you could set up an altar with that in mind.

I hope this has been intelligible, interesting, and informative. It wasn’t as obviously enlightening for me as doing the same thing for fire was, but it did give me a new perspective on the water element.

(Image from Wikimedia)