Dreaming with the Water Element & How Symbols Speak to Us

I remember reading about a recent visit of a Kogi Indian Shaman to the West. He was spending time with a group of westerners and was due to give a teaching. After probably thinking about the most useful teaching he could offer, he simply said these words “Look after the food and the water”. The group had probably been expecting some kind of mystical elucidation of the deeper levels of imaginal reality but he simply pointed to a kind of environmental necessity. In his mind he might have thought something like ‘what use is deep spiritual teaching about the non-physical world if we don’t even have these fundamental things in place, i.e. the protection of the food and water’. Of course we, in the modern world often live far removed from the simple reality of these things. We, as whole, rarely draw our own water from the springs of the land, and we rarely grow our own food from the land. The factual reality of our deep interconnected dependence on them often escapes us. As an aside though, recently after running a meditation workshop at a Neolithic long barrow and subsequently drinking from a local spring, I had the most incredibly elevated lucid dream experience.  

So, hopefully when we begin to explore the kind of narratives below, as well as stimulating our imagination, they will help us weave our way back to the simple imminent environmental interconnected reality of the elements.

I remember one time I was in a lucid dream and I found myself standing in a river. I asked to meet a water spirit, which had a good intention towards me and had wisdom etc, and I was met by a wonderful force. I could not see it with the eyes of my dream body but the whole energy of the lucid dream began to change. It was similar to the sensation that marks the beginning of a journey on magic mushrooms. Everything began to pulsate, with joyful, radiant waves of expanding energy. I was taken up into the energy and I began to stream through the river with the water spirit, immersed in wonder rainbow colours.

Another time I was in a lucid dream, and I began a special chant for the Undine/Water Spirit that I had previously channelled in physical reality. Some of the words within the chant had, at least at first for me, no conceptual meaning. But after researching one of the words that came to me, I found it was an old French word that meant ‘protector of men’. This gave me confidence in the channelled chant/mantra and I often began to use it in waking reality. When later I began to chant it in the lucid dream the dream landscape began to swirl and change and a symbol appeared near to me. Often when we reach out to and connect with beings that exist on a different level of reality to our own, we are greeted with this kind of symbolic, telepathic response. The symbol that came to me was of a question mark written in sand. Later when I reflected on the symbolism of this I felt that it connected to various things. Firstly it was a suggestion of a question ‘Yes, what do you wish to know?’ and also a question of ‘what will these later symbols later mean?’. So it was both asking me ‘what’?, and also ‘what’ do you understand by these things that will know come. The symbolism also connected to the story of Jesus in the Gospels where he is writing in the sand on the ground and the women taken in adultery is brought before him.  He is asked what he feel should be done with her, and he responded in an earth-changing way ‘Let he that is without sin cast the first stone’. In this symbol of the question mark written in the sand there was also the question for ‘Have you forgiven the women that have done wrong in your life?’.

Next came an image of a card wrapped as a gift. In Indian/Yogic tradition the Nagas or the class of being more commonly known in Western Esoteric Tradition as Undines, are often seen as beings who sometimes act through the bestowal of gifts of wisdom. For instance, some of the deep Buddhist Wisdom texts, such as those by Nagajuna, were said to have been gathered as gifts from their realm. After I approached the gift-card I opened it and a series of other objects appeared in sequence in my hands. It would be easy to reveal what these images were, but something symbolism and gifts are only meant for the receiver. Interestingly after receiving these gifts from the water elemental spirits, the level of the dream changed and I was transported down through the ground and I found myself in a different scene. I was by a water pond surrounded by buildings and then later entered into a church. Recently I was at a Steiner Training School and I recognised the landscape, with the pond and surrounding buildings from this part of the lucid dream. How physical reality sometimes catches up with what the Soul has already seen…

In general the way that communication is delivered in lucid dreams, and out of body experiences is fascinating. Sometimes telepathic messages may come through as paintings, picture books, or in one I remember ‘writing’ suddenly appearing on a cake before my dream eyes. Messages and symbolism can also continue to filter through normal dreams as well. I remember that after doing a lot of work to connect to Undines and Naga’s, the guardians of the water element, I had a dream where people were riding on the top of huge Dragon like creatures. As the animals swung around, someone commented that the riders should be careful as one of those tails could easily take someone’s head off. A cautionary note about connecting to such powerful energies.

​However much though we dream into the imaginal realms, it is always worth remembering that simple piece of spiritual-environmental advice. “Look after the food and the water”. If You would like to learn more about working with the energies of nature in your meditation check out the book The Initiation by Tom Llewellyn      

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