Living the Elements: Water

Winter Seasonal Resources

Water is associated with Winter, the season of stillness, solitude, courage, fear, and deep wisdom in the face of the unknown. Water is life’s greatest resource and it takes many forms. Water is the element of rest and re-charge. Through deep listening, we engender a connection to our hidden resources. To do this, we must get enough sleep, cultivate peace and stillness in our busy lives, and learn to develop our inner quietude.

Winter’s darkness creates an acute awareness of all the mysteries that surround us. A person who has strong Water in their constitution often can’t help but be aware, all the time, of just how much we don’t know.

When Water people develop ease with not knowing, and settle into it, they become life’s Deep Listeners. It is only by surrendering into not-knowing that our hearts can be touched by wisdom. Water is the rooted strength of a relaxed power that comes from truly resting in what we do know, surrounded and supported by what we don’t know—but which we can sense, in the silence, and in the dark.

Here are some of my favorite reminders of Water in winter:

Song: Odetta – Something Inside So Strong

This is Odetta at her last concert.  Wow.  I go here when I am needing to find true strength, and know it in the bones. It sustains me, and makes me unafraid to grow old.

(For more about the primal strength of our life force, no matter how cold and dark the journey, see our self-guided CEU Kidney 2-11-16: Like an Engine.)

Song: Pharoah Sanders – Kazuko (Peace Child)

Life is an endless mystery, a dark night sky shot through with tiny points of light…Kazuko by Pharoah Sanders takes me there—to the silent searching awe that seeks and seeks and seeks in the darkness…and finds God in the search.  Try listening to this in the dark, or with your eyes closed. You’ll feel Bladder 4, 5, 6, and 7 opening to the infinite mystery beyond the starlight.

(For more about the Upper Bladder points, see our self-guided CEUs Intro to Bladder 3-4-5 and Intro to Bladder 6-10. Both are on sale for 25% off through February 28, 2021.)

Terje Haakonsen

Here’s something different, but also powerful medicine for me when I need Water strength. I go here when I’m feeling SCARED and need to make room for adrenaline in my system—huge amounts of adrenaline, but without freaking out or losing my nerve. It’s Terje Haakonsen tackling 7601. After watching this I think, OK, I can face whatever I need to face. It completely helps me find my grip on my inner resources in a good way, in the depths.

(For more about living your destiny, see the self-guided CEU Kidney 7-8: To Thine Own Self Be True.)

Sculpture: Jason deCaires Taylor

This is fun! Jason deCaires Taylor is an internationally acclaimed eco-sculptor who creates underwater living sculptures, offering viewers mysterious, ephemeral encounters and fleeting glimmers of another world where art develops from the effects of nature on the efforts of man. His site-specific, permanent installations are designed to act as artificial reefs, attracting coral, increasing marine biomass, and aggregating fish species, while crucially diverting tourists away from fragile natural reefs and thus providing space for natural rejuvenation.

(For more about the depths of Water, see our self-guided CEU  CV-KI-ST-SP in the Lower Burner.)

Poem: To Know the Dark – by Wendell Berry

To Know The Dark
by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

(For more about what we “see” when we allow ourselves to “go dark,” explore our self-guided CEU Intro to Bladder 1-2.)

Do you have songs, poems, or images that really exemplify winter or the Water Element for you? Let us know in the comments!

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