70 Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard
releasing the tensions and stresses of your life—sim-
ply breathe them out and visualize them running down
your body, into your roots, and out into the Earth.
As you breathe in again, begin to draw up into
yourself the nutrients that are in the Earth Herself.
Think of such qualities as steadfastness, endurance,
stability. In this simple exercise you are reconnecting
with the foundation of your life. You are grounding
yourself. Let yourself enjoy this connection. You may
actually feel something like an electrical current run-
ning into your feet and legs. This would be a good
time to reflect upon the graciousness of our planet
who receives not only our personal toxins, but also
the excessive pollution of our modern life. Our grati-
tude for the purification work of the Earth is helpful.
You can end this little exercise by taking a walk
on the Earth, being very aware of each step you take.
Imagine an interchange between you and the Earth.
As you make contact with each step, you bless one
another. This activity of consciously walking and
breathing becomes a very real relationship between
you and the planet who is our Mother and our physi-
cal home. Enjoy it!Lesson 5: Water
I am the Water around you
I am the pulse of life within you
I am the ocean flowing through you
I am all that I am!
—Abbi SpinnerAll water is one Water, contiguous and indivisible.
Water sustains us, and Water unites us. Water is a
universal medium, a universal solvent, and a univer-
sal electrical conductor. And so Water shared is Life
shared. Water is the one essential ingredient that makes
life possible, as well as that which unites all life. For
Water is indivisible. You can pour a pitcher of it into
several glasses, then pour them all back together again,
and the Water is unchanged. Earth’s water cycle car-
ries water vapor into the sky via evaporation, returns
it to the land as rain, flows down to the oceans as
rivers, and back to the sky again through the endless
great Round River. In the process that Water passes
through the bodies of every living creature—drunk
in, peed out; absorbed through roots, transpired
through leaves, in and out, throughout and about. Our
bodies are 85% water, and the plasma of our blood is
chemically contiguous with the ancient waters of the
oceanic womb where life began. Moreover, Water’s
property of electrical conductivity makes it the me-
dium of our bioenergetic consciousness.
Water has a remarkable and unique property: It
expands when it freezes, making its solid form lighter
than its liquid, and allowing ice to float. Were it notso, the Earth’s oceans would long ago have frozen
solid from the bottom upwards. Astronomers have
located water ice on the Moon, Mars, and possibly
Mercury. The rings of Saturn are mostly ice. One of
Jupiter’s moons, Europa, seems to be covered with a
watery ocean beneath a frozen surface, where many
think life may exist. Water is everywhere in the cos-
mos—and house-sized snowballs are constantly fall-
ing upon the Earth from space, at the rate of 5–30
every minute! Water is not just on Earth, Mars, Europa,
and all the rest—it is falling upon all these worlds in
a continual hailstorm that permeates all of space!
In my own exploration of the Elements, Water
has always been very special to me. I learned to swim
almost at the same time I learned to walk. I grew up
by Crystal Lake in Illinois, a beautiful lake where I
spent every Summer swimming in the clear water. I
have done bodysurfing and water-skiing. I took up
SCUBA diving, and in 1984, I led a diving expedi-
tion to the Coral Sea in search of mermaids! (But that’s
another story....) So if you don’t already know how
to swim, I urge you to do so.Quest: The Sweet Water of
Life
(by Farida Ka’iwalani Fox)Water is reflective and quiescent with-
out being necessarily passive. It is recep-
tive and always seeks its own level, flow-
ing easily around and over obstacles. These
are qualities we may wish to cultivate at
times when life seems unyielding and barren.
Our bodies are 90% liquid, and our earliest prenatal
experience of existence was one of floating in a wa-
tery chamber—our mother’s womb. The development
of the fetus repeats the biological shapes of ancestral
life-forms whose homes are in the water. For the first
nine months of our existence we are at ease and com-
fort in the gentle rocking motion of the amniotic fluid.
We can return to that state of grace by increasing our
awareness of Water.
Take a short visit to a body of water anywhere—
the lake, the river, the ocean, a pool, even a plastic
wading pool in the backyard—or your bathtub. Al-
low yourself to get into the water quickly, so that you
can feel the contrast of coolness as it covers your skin.
Let yourself float quietly for a few moments to expe-
rience that sense of buoyant support of this, our long-
ago home. Consider, as you are being tenderly rocked
and massaged by the cool liquid, that the very core of
your cellular memory-banks are being gratefully re-
minded of their origins. If you are in a creek or stre-
ambed, you might like to experience sitting like a
boulder in the middle of the current to feel the power
of the water as it rushes around you. Perhaps you will- Nature.p65 70 1/14/2004, 3:33 PM