WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE...

 

Photo by Imleedh Ali on Unsplash

Water has always been a universal symbol of life across cultures, past and present. Nothing can live without water. As Jacques Yves Cousteau said it so aptly,

“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.”

Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula of H2O – transparent, odourless, tasteless, colourless, but the significance it has in all our lives is momentous.

Mythology abounds with water deities. This list is mindbogglingly long. These gods and goddesses were prominent in civilizations that grew up next to the sea or ocean, or beside great rivers. A few examples are:

 Ashiakle, the goddess of the treasures at the bottom of the ocean (Africa)

Anuket, the goddess of the Nile, nourisher of the fields (Egypt)

Nephthys, the goddess of rivers, death, mourning and night (Egypt)

Mazu, the goddess of the sea and protector of sea farers, (China)

 Mizuchi – dragon and sea god (Japan)

Ahurani – goddess who stands guard over rainfall and standing water (Persia)

Belisama – the goddess of lakes and rivers, fire, crafts and light (Celtic)

Freyr – the Norse god of rain, sunlight, fertility, life and summer (Sweden)

Father Thames – the guardian of the river Thames (UK)

Poseidon – the Olympian god of the sea and the king of the sea gods (Greek)

These are but the tip of the iceberg. The list continues over pages.

As far as Hindu mythology goes, the two prominent deities are Varuna, the god of the oceans, the rains and water, and Indra, the king of the gods connected with the rain, thunderstorms and clouds. Lord Vishnu’s first avatar was the Matsya avatar where he took the form of a fish.

Lord Varuna - Instagram

Lord Indra - Instagram

India is also home to the Sapthasindhu, or the seven holy rivers:

The Ganga, the Yamuna, the Saraswati, the Indus (the Sindhu), the Narmada, the Godavari and the Kaveri, all of whom were revered as goddesses.

“Water is everywhere and in all living things; we cannot be separated from water. No water, no life. Period. Water comes in many forms – liquid, vapor, ice, snow, fog, rain, hail. But no matter the form, it’s still water.”

Robert Fulghum

History and literature are replete with references to water and its influence. One of the earliest references goes back to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Pontius Pilate was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea under the Emperor Tiberius, and he was the official who presided over the trial. After he ordered for the crucifixion of Christ quoting sedition, he washed his hands in water saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this righteous person.” Thus, his gesture was symbolic of washing off his sins, a symbolic cleansing or ablution, as it were, which later led to the phrase “wash one’s hand of”, meaning to shrug off or absolve oneself from responsibility for some action or decision.


                                                                                      Pontius Pilate - Instagram

When William Shakespeare wrote his famous tragedy, Macbeth, he used the same symbolic gesture, that is, that of washing hands to drive home the guilt people go through when they commit a crime which lives on in their subconscious. The conniving Lady Macbeth, who urges her husband to commit regicide, says at the start – “A little water clears us of this deed.”

Once the heinous deed is done, Macbeth declares in Act 2, Scene 2,

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?

No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.”

Lady Macbeth also suffers the consequences of the assassination of King Duncan, as the famous sleepwalking scene reveals. She incessantly tries to cleanse herself of the vile deed by rubbing her hands together, muttering,

“Out damn’d spot. Out, I say! One, two! – why, then ‘tis time to do ‘t.”

The inescapable nature of their crime tie both in a conspiracy of guilt and remorse, which results in their metaphorically trying to wash away the bloodstains on their hands as they relive the assassination in a nightmarish cycle.

During the COVID – 19 years, Gabriela Michele Milkova, a poet with an MA English (Honours) from St. Andrews University set up a page for those who felt isolated during the quarantine. She advocated the Lady Macbeth Method of washing hands till they are squeaky clean.

https://gabrielamichelemilkova.com/dailythought/lady-macbeth-method


                                Gabriela Milkova - Quarantine Daily Thought - The Lady Macbeth Method

The Jewish blessing also makes use of this gesture of washing hands as they intone,

“Blessed are you, Source of Life, who makes us holy through these actions including this washing of the hands” or Netilat Yadayim which means “taking up of the hands”.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote his poem – ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ in which the Mariner’s act of slaying an albatross, the harbinger of warm winds and calm seas, led to a voyage of suffering and tragedy. The Mariner was cursed to live with the dead albatross around his neck and tell his grievous tale to who ever would listen. The other mariners began dying of lack of water, which led to the lines that are probably the most popular in the poem.

“Water, water everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.”

The poet uses irony in these lines. There was water all around, the blue salty water of the ocean, but obviously it was unsuitable to drink. The idiom ‘albatross around one’s neck’ also came into use from this poem. It means “a thing that hinders, a heavy burden, a deed that hampers one’s ability to succeed”.

                                                                                                  Goodreads

While looking for references, I came across some beautiful poems by classic poets waxing eloquent on water.

Going for Water by Robert Frost ends with this evocative stanza.

“A note as from a single place,

A slender tinkling fall that made

Now drops that floated on the pool,

Like pearls, and now a silver blade.”

Another wonderful offering is by W.B. Yeats.

The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water

I heard the old, old men say,

“Everything alters

And one by one we drop away.”

They had hand like claws, and their knees

Were twisted like the old thorn-trees

By the waters.

I heard the old, old men say

“All that’s beautiful drifts away

Like the waters.”

There are so many more illustrative examples in literature.

Sea Calm by Langston Hughes

https://allpoetry.com/Sea-Calm

If I Could Write Words by Spike Milligan

https://allpoetry.com/If-I-Could-Write-Words

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/peace-wild-things-0/

And yet another poem which talks sparingly of being awake at night…

Awake at Night by Matsuo Basho; Translated by Robert Hass

https://allpoetry.com/Awake-at-night

How can a list like this be complete without the exquisite beauty of Rabindranath Tagore?

When the Two Sisters Go to Fetch Water by Tagore

https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-30070

Water is the true elixir of life. That is the reason why so much has been written about its healing qualities. Good clean water is a boon, and it is essential to adopt a lifestyle in which we do not waste water, but use it to its fullest. As Sylvia Earle, American marine biologist and oceanographer put it so tellingly,

“There’s plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.”

 

                                                                                             QuoteFancy

This post is a part of 'H2OhSnap Blog Hop' hosted by Sukaina Majeed and Manali Desai  - #EveryConversationMatters

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