You are afraid of drowning, dear friend.
Even if you tell yourself that you don’t fear death.
All the Stoic mantras, all the esoteric jargon, philosophy, and black magic that rattle around inside that skull of yours don’t change a thing.
Plus, "death" is abstract - it’s intangible and nebulous - while it is easy to imagine water flooding your lungs, to feel your body enveloped by cool numbness.
It's all quite primal, really.
Primal, as in tucked away in that part of your brain that you share with higher primates.
Even if you tell yourself that you don’t fear death.
All the Stoic mantras, all the esoteric jargon, philosophy, and black magic that rattle around inside that skull of yours don’t change a thing.
Plus, "death" is abstract - it’s intangible and nebulous - while it is easy to imagine water flooding your lungs, to feel your body enveloped by cool numbness.
It's all quite primal, really.
Primal, as in tucked away in that part of your brain that you share with higher primates.
(Primus used to mean first in Latin.)
Your relationship to water, however, goes much further back than your hominoid forefathers - all the way back, in fact, to your primordial, single-celled ancestors. Ever since the latter turned up in Earth’s oceans about 3.7 billion years ago, water has played a vital role in each and every living cell of every creature that has walked the face of the Earth.
Your relationship to water, however, goes much further back than your hominoid forefathers - all the way back, in fact, to your primordial, single-celled ancestors. Ever since the latter turned up in Earth’s oceans about 3.7 billion years ago, water has played a vital role in each and every living cell of every creature that has walked the face of the Earth.
We are all, just like all our brothers before us, tethered to water, chained to it by our umbilical cords. You are.
Scientific inquiry appears to confirm that the oceans are where life originated, and that does seem to make sense. It has made sense ever since Thales of Miletus posited that water was the essence of matter itself. Admittedly, we've come quite a long way in our understanding of what we call matter since Ancient Greek times.
(Have you ever considered why the words matter and mother are so similar?)
Water was of no lesser importance to the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians, who - having built their civilizations by guiding its flow - recognized it as a force of sacred creation. Unsurprisingly, they had also come up with concepts similar to that of the primordial soup, which contemporary biologists use to describe the primitive oceans of Earth, from which life is thought to have arisen.
Speaking of Science, some evolutionary psychologists attribute your being drawn to shiny things - gemstones and precious metals, for example - to the arousal of those same instincts that a refreshing sunlit stream would have aroused in your primitive predecessors.
That, too, rings true.
That, too, rings true.
It also half-explains humanity’s millennia-long infatuation with gold.
In the deepest recesses of your psyche, the color of gold and its reflected warmness conjure up associations with our nearby star, they remind you of its life-giving properties and of the fragrant Springs it makes possible.
That’s what is called a Symbol - this indirect, almost mystical connection between the signifier and the signified. And symbols are to myths what Democritus posited that atoms are to matter.
Indeed, mythology has managed to encapsulate our relationship to water in an intriguing metaphysical manner. The myths of the ancient Greeks tell us that it's precisely water that separates Earth and the Underworld, with the Rivers Styx and Acheron serving as boundaries between the two, traversed only by those Charon ferries across, i.e. the souls who have received proper rites of burial.
You might have also thought of the myth of Noah's Flood, which is not exclusive to Christianity, but rather found in many mythologies and across innumerable cultures, including that of the aforementioned Sumerians. Among those working in the field of anthropology, there are those who believe this overlap to be proof of such an event having really taken place at some point in our collective past. Regardless of whether that is the case, we seem to have always unconsciously perceived water as a force of both life and death. As a mirror held together by surface tension. According to Christian tradition, it is by passing through this mirror during the sacrament of water baptism that one is initiated into the life of the Children of God.
The very fabric of human culture is soaked in the primeval waters of creation and annihilation. From the Sumerian Eridu Genesis to the texts about Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva’s births. The waters of Noah's flood permeate Tarkovsky's STALKER, and their waves ripple throughout Katsushiro Otomo's AKIRA (アキラ).
Long before Darwin gave us the Theory of Evolution, we already knew that we'd arisen from the deep, just as our consciousness arises from what lies bellow it. It is hardly a difficult conclusion to arrive at once you recognize what a mother’s womb is.
Indeed, mythology has managed to encapsulate our relationship to water in an intriguing metaphysical manner. The myths of the ancient Greeks tell us that it's precisely water that separates Earth and the Underworld, with the Rivers Styx and Acheron serving as boundaries between the two, traversed only by those Charon ferries across, i.e. the souls who have received proper rites of burial.
You might have also thought of the myth of Noah's Flood, which is not exclusive to Christianity, but rather found in many mythologies and across innumerable cultures, including that of the aforementioned Sumerians. Among those working in the field of anthropology, there are those who believe this overlap to be proof of such an event having really taken place at some point in our collective past. Regardless of whether that is the case, we seem to have always unconsciously perceived water as a force of both life and death. As a mirror held together by surface tension. According to Christian tradition, it is by passing through this mirror during the sacrament of water baptism that one is initiated into the life of the Children of God.
The very fabric of human culture is soaked in the primeval waters of creation and annihilation. From the Sumerian Eridu Genesis to the texts about Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva’s births. The waters of Noah's flood permeate Tarkovsky's STALKER, and their waves ripple throughout Katsushiro Otomo's AKIRA (アキラ).
Long before Darwin gave us the Theory of Evolution, we already knew that we'd arisen from the deep, just as our consciousness arises from what lies bellow it. It is hardly a difficult conclusion to arrive at once you recognize what a mother’s womb is.
And in case you are just now realizing the latter, you might also want to ponder why a hot shower feels so comforting after a hard day at work.
10.129 Creation Hymn from the Rig Veda:
There was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where?
In whose protection? Was there water, bottomlessly deep?
10.129 Creation Hymn from the Rig Veda:
There was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where?
In whose protection? Was there water, bottomlessly deep?
