The reality is, feelings, when deeply felt, move. For when we allow ourselves to be fully immersed in our internal feeling state, we are tapping into a deeper river of felt experience, a river that naturally flows. When we tap into the natural rhythm of our own experience, we become students at the feet of our deepest and most self-evident truth—the way we are feeling at any given moment.
This is where water comes in. Water has become an extremely potent symbol for me of being in the depths of one’s heart, immersed in a feeling state. Esoteric associations between the heart, feelings, and water persist in many fields—in astrology, water signs carry the potency of the heart, in tarot, cups filled with water—or not—can symbolize the ways feelings are manifesting in our lives.
When I first began studying dreams, in fact, I was taught that water represents feelings in dreams. This was such a broad pronouncement; it was somewhat difficult to wrap my head around. But even now this equivalence is a north star I use to navigate the significance of water in dreams. Lately, I’ve come to feel how in some sense water in dreams represents not just feelings as they exist individually, but truly this idea of flow, a more encompassing sense of allowing ourselves to be immersed the internal depth and movement of our experience. This intuition is deeply imbedded within our own language—thus the cliché, to be flooded with emotion. And isn’t this the way that we physically experience our most visceral emotions? Through our salted tears?
In dreams, we often find ourselves at the edges of water, or witnessing water flowing where we feel it shouldn’t be. This reflects our ambivalence about allowing ourselves to step into the rhythm of our own hearts, that ever-flowing rhythm of our soul. Allowing ourselves to dive into the water—to experience the flow of water around our bodies, to be cleansed by the purity of the water that holds us and nurtures us, these are all ways that we can begin the process of healing our hearts. These are all steps on the path towards awakening to the deepest expressions and vibrations of our souls. And these are some times choices that we are presented with inside of our own dreams—to jump in, or not, to turn off the faucet, or not, to breathe the water—or hold our breath.
Sometimes I visualize pent up emotions as a shorted electrical wire, sparks flying, a high pitched buzzing coming from the center, reverberating out and sizzling all who come in contact. I use this to understand the moment when this sizzling wire comes in contact with the water. Because that is, in a way, what I’m asking people to do when I say step into the water. It’s truly in that first moment of diving in that we experience the most resistance—and it can be totally devastating. There’s just something so excruciating about those wires, filled to the brim with illusions about who we truly are meet the unbounded and encompassing love of the water, the knowledge that all that is, is well. Even though we know the relief that will be there to comfort us just on the other side, getting through that moment can be so scary.
All I know is that we can’t take these steps alone. We are not meant to be who we are in a vacuum, it is not our job to figure ourselves out or fix ourselves or make ourselves better. It is our job to simply be, trusting that we will be held when we do so.
I often say the moment of being at the edge of your own feeling state is like being at the ocean’s edge, considering a swim. It’s quite common to spend months—even years—at the edge of a particular feeling, pulled there by its vastness and power, but completely unwilling to jump in. We fear the water will be too cold, that we aren’t prepared, so we put it off—tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. But of course the longer we wait at the shore the more tension is created between the two states—a tension we try to ease with drugs or sex or work or exercise or food whatever it is. But it cannot be resolved through any other means but diving in. It’s necessary for us to jump.
I’ve been feeling in a larger sense that it is time for humanity to jump. There’s so much lost in our hesitancy. The time to linger at the ocean’s edge has come to an end. There is too much at stake for individuals to resist their own natural feeling states. This resistance is at the root of so much dis-ease in the world, and it is each individual’s responsibility to recognize the feelings they are lingering at the edge of and find the courage to submerge themselves.
Isn’t it always better when we do so? How often have we regretted the moments where we let ourselves loose and just dived into the water—even if we had to jump right back out?
Because there’s no shame in jumping out, as long as you jump back in. It’s a flow and rhythm of its own. Something I’ve learned in the past five years of working with this idea, facing into my feelings, letting myself feel them, diving into the flow of our my own heart—is that it is far from a linear process, and I feel quite certain I will never be complete. One shouldn’t jump into the water with the goal of achieving something specific, solving some particular external issue or becoming some kind of divine reflection of enlightenment or anything like that. The jump itself is a leap of faith—a trust in the depths of your very own self, a sense that your vessel is whole, that it can contain you fully, just as you can contain it. Because of course if we jump into the flow then we are consenting to the transformation that is part of it—changes that when flowing, we have no control over.
I invite you all to examine the dream moments that water shows up. Really feel into the moment as deeply as you can, taking in all that is present in that dream experience. Resist the urge to tell a story about it, and simply feel it. Then, as you turn your inner experience to the water in the dream, ask yourself—is there a feeling that I could let myself sink into in this moment? Is there a place where I could open up my heart just a little bit more, attune myself to my own inner flow? If I was resisting a feeling in this moment, what would it be? What is the biggest feeling that comes up in my body, as I take one step closer to the edge of that water?
And as always, it’s vital to acknowledge each individual’s diverse and deep connection to water, and how this element will utilize your unique connection to it in dreams to guide you. Like any other symbol in your dream, the most potent and important thing you can do is feel into it for yourself, and truly from yourself, digging in deeply from your gut to get a sense of what that symbol is bringing up for you in the particular circumstance your dream offers you. In this way, you will come to know your own symbols, and in time, speak the language of your dream with fluency.
Sweet dreaming dear ones,
