Water Spirits

WATER SPIRITS

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water and back.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

The other half of me is an ondine: a water spirit, silkie, mermaid, Lorelei.

"ondine: After Undine. From Teutonic folklore, female water spirits that love to associate

with humans, even to the point that they join in during the merry-making of the humans."

She has many names. She represents that which is emotional, loving, empathetic,

and giving in me. She loves beauty and lovely soaps, cremes and oils; the best gift one can

give an Ondine is scent. She balances the Salamander, the fire-loving dragon to

which the fierce part of my soul is drawn. I love my mermaids as much as I do my

dragons. They understand my sorrows, and comfort me.

"The mermaid archetype is so widespread among cultures that one may conclude

it is very ancient, and fulfills a particular need in the human collective

consciousness. The mermaid in our culture is the most persistent and pervasive

symbol of the old Goddess energy that represents women, particularly the mysterious,

life-generating element. The Christian Church, in promoting the ideas that mermaids

a) were dangerous temptresses and

b) had no souls of their own,

was actually stating deeply-held beliefs about all women, much as in the case of

the witchcraze, when harmless old wise women were put to death by burning or hanging

for practicing traditional herb-lore; this being the province of women, it was

destroyed by the Church in support of male domination.

The beautiful, helpful and compellingly attractive goddess-mermaid has been stripped

of all her spiritual qualities; hence the stories involving the mermaid's soul

could never end happily. They emphasized the supposed faithlessness and inconstancy

of women, the danger of their attraction, and the unlikelihood of their gaining humanity."

(From "Shadows of the Goddess - The Mermaid" by Scarlett deMason)

Here is a story which illustrates this theme.