BOTTLED WISDOM
Water Cycles Stories
Physical World Middle Lesson – Class 2
The Indina Sisters swam lazily around in their bottle of water on The Teacher’s desk. They had a perfect view of the whole class of 8-year-old children – and they could hear every word of this Water Cycle Stories middle lesson.
It had not been easy for them to get there, but when they heard that his exciting unit was to be taught, they were very determined indeed! Where had they come from? Goodness Knows? From near and further – from Ancient India even- that water (‘Undia’) land, that realm of the evolution of consciousness being experienced by these Class 2 children.
Somehow they caught a ride on a raincloud, which eventually drifted over the school. They tumbled to earth, and landed on the classroom roof! They then found (or made!) a leak, right over The Teacher’s desk. He had quickly placed a large bottle under it to catch the ‘drips’.
(“Drips Indeed!”)
The Indina Sister, like children, love a good story; especially if it’s about them – which stories for young children often are. As the bottle remained on the desk after the sun-shower had passed, the Sisters got to hear all the stories. I think that they must have whispered in The Teacher’s ear, to place a single blue waterlily in the bottle, assuring their stay. Naturally the Sisters were there for the morning main and afternoon block lessons as well, but they tended to snooze through those. It was the ‘heart’, or feeling middle lesson they had come to hear, and, vicariously, to teach!
They were so excited on that first day, swimming around in the jar like invisible eels. If it were night, one may have seen phosphorescent sparkles given off by their activity, based as it is on the processes of metabolism. Indeed, in their long life (they were born in Ancient Lemuria) they had many adventures in many strange places; on several occasions in the guts of animals, working away with the complex organic chemistry to nourish the owners. Once they’d even been in a person; they had been swallowed, with here apple juice, by a little girl. They were trapped, only to be released some time later as – 2 tears!
So the story began, the girls settled down:
SALTY AND THE NEREID
Once, perhaps it was only yesterday, there lived, deep in the ocean, a little sea man called Salty. He loved his watery home dearly, but there were days when he was quite lonely, all his little fish friends having gone to school!
On just such a day, Salty was idly swimming through one of his favorite coral gardens, when he was delighted to see a beautiful sea nymph, or Nereid, sitting on a rock watching him.
His heart was captured by her loveliness, her hair was long and silver and her eyes a deep green. He swam up to her and grandly introduced himself.
“Good morning, my name is Salty, let me take you on a tour of the coral garden; perhaps later we can have a seaweed supper!”
The Nereid had never met such a charming fellow, and together they spent the rest of the day joyfully exploring. Towards nightfall they were hand-in-hand, and very friendly indeed. Salty proudly introduced her to his fishy friends who had come home from school.
As night fell, Salty felt he had to warn his new friend about some of the dangers lurking behind rock and in gloomy grotto. He told how a shadow passing overhead could be a hungry shark; or perhaps the many-armed octopus might reach out and…
Salty and the Nereid slept safely in a large, abandoned clam shell, and when the smiling sun turned their underwater world from darkness into dazzling color, they woke.
“Let’s play hide and see in the seaweed?!” suggested Salty happily, which they did. For some time the two new friends had fun, with the clever little sea man sometimes letting himself be found. But something went wrong. When it was his turn to find her, he couldn’t. He searched shallow and deep for the lovely Nereid, imaging he could see her flowing long hair among the weed. Alas, she had completely disappeared!
He called and called until the dark fingers of night turned the sea to black ink. Salty was so unhappy as he stopped to rest beside a huge, shining rock to wait for the dawn. Only then could he resume his search. As the first weak rays of light penetrated the dark depths, Salty was awakened by a tiny voice calling his name. It sounded far away – yet near. He was sure of one think thought, it was the cry of the Nereid. He searched furiously under rock and weed, but found nothing. Still he could hear the voice, he swam around to the other side of the big, shiny rock to rummage around on the sandy bottom, and amazed to find that it wasn’t a rock at all – it was a Giant Groper!
The Nereid had been accidently swallowed by the huge fish when she had hidden in his open mouth during hide-and-seek, mistaking it for a cave! Salty knew that her only chance was if he could join her inside, and help her escape.
But even though Salty waited for quite a long time, the Giant Groper would not open his mouth, not even to yawn. Salty tried persuasion, like punching him on the nose! But the Groper felt this not at all. The little man told jokes, hooping that when the big fish laughed, he would dart in. “Which fish has the best musical ear? – Give up? – A piano tuna, ha, ha, ha!” But apparently Gropers don’t have a sense of humor!
Salty was not getting angry, after unsuccessfully trying to pry the thick-lipped mouth with an urchin spine, he stepped back to catch his breath – and fell into a large Sea Anemone! All you could see were his little arms and legs, flailing helplessly. The Groper glared “Hey! Get out of there, he’s my neighbor.” To say this, the fish had to open his mouth, this was just the chance Salty needed, he jumped out of the tangling tentacles of the Anemone, and down the Groper’s throat. In the stifling blackness, the two frightened friends were re-united.
“Now, how to get out?” said Salty with just a touch of false cheer; the Nereid gripped his strong little hand, she felt so much better now that he was here. “There’s a passage, let’s follow it. Hand-in-hand they ‘groped’, so to speak, their way along Grump Groper.
“Oh no, this passage is a dead-end too!” said Salty, his mood as sphinctered as his Piscean prison! Salty began banging with his fists – but nothing happened. He yelled out for the fish to cough them up – but the only sound was his own echo.
“Feel for an opening.” He told the Nereid. She did, but found nothing – well, almost nothing. In the darkness her fingers touched a fleshy prominence, they were somewhere in the cave of the nose of the great fish. While Salty sat down to think of something, the Nereid took a wisp of her silver hair and tickled the ‘thing’.
If you could have observed the Groper from outside, you would have seen his dinner-plate eyes bulge, his wide mouth open and …Ahhhh-choooo!! He sneezed so hard that Salty and the Nereid were sent shooting out – up, up, up – into the light – higher still, right to the surface!
Neither of the two friends had ever been there before, so they just bobbed around, staring in amazement at birds, clouds and other wonders – all bathed in the clearest and sharpest light. Salty was uncomfortable about his, preferring the safety of the deep, but the Nereid was delighted. Never had she smelt air before, nor seen the – what could that glowing ball of light be? The sun. She shook her head when Salty suggested, after a brief look around, to return below.
So they played among the waves for some time. “Only till the afternoon.” Agreed Salty reluctantly. But just as they were about to descent beneath the bright clue sea surface, the Nereid spotted, in the distance, the craggy cliffs of the shoreline. She pulled away from her friend; against his better judgement, he followed. Who knows that trouble she could get herself into?
Some time later they found themselves quite near a flat, black rock shelf, upon which large waves dashed themselves senseless. “Oh do come away, I don’t like it here, after all it’s getting late…” His pleas were cut short by an extra-large wave which picked them up in its watery arms and rushed them shoreward. Whoooosh – they were rolled around, rinsed and double rinsed. Luckily both landed in a quiet, deep rock pool.
“That’s my job done!” laughed the wave as it retreated back to its ocean home, leaving Salty and the Nereid stranded.
Salty was anxious – afraid even; he had never been on land before – not that he could remember anyway. But the Nereid was curious, and playful as usual, swimming round the pool, peering into nook and crevice.
That night they slept soundly and safely, there were no sharks or octopus here. Next day, as the hot sun shone on the small rock pool, the water began to evaporate, the pool grew smaller by the hour.
Salty complained of stiffening in his arms and legs; the Nereid found difficulty swimming in the now puddle-sized pool. At last Salty could not move at all “You…you must get back to the sea…” he gasped to his friend, before his voice trailed off all together. He stood out of the water now, quite still – and he had turned white!
The Nereid was now very frightened, wishing she was once more swimming happily in the coral garden with her friend. She cold do nothing to help him as she lay gasping in the sun, the pool was almost completely dry now. She looked up at the cause of their woes – the pitiless sun, and saw a hand of light reach down to her. She drew back in fear, but Salty’s sad eyes implored her to take the offered hand. This she did, and was lifted up, up above the empty pool, above the rock shelf, above the craggy cliffs.
As she rose, weightless in the light, her heart wept for little Salty, now a white dot far below. How she wished he could travel with here.
In the arms of the sun, she flew over strange and wonderful landscapes – paddocks, rivers, forests and …what was that noisy, smokey place? A city! Night fell, and she was hung gently on a silver spider web to sleep. The next morning she was again lifted up by the sun to travel on; this time to ascent a high mountain range. Here she grew very cold, ice formed on her silver hair, turning it white. She was lifted up into the bosom of a giant cauliflower loud, then dropped, then lifted up again. This happened many times, and she grew very dizzy indeed; she curled up into a tight ball to keep warm, and plummeted to earth – Bounce! She landed on a lawn, where a small boy ran out in excitement and picked her up. He held the round ball of ice in his warm hand, hoping to keep it to show his mother, but in a minute or two, the sun reached down and once again claimed his own. The Nereid’s journey continued.
Some days later, a strong wind gathered her into his invisible arms and carried her far inland. She was afraid of getting lost, so she kept her green eye on a silver ribbon of river far below. The wind lifted her higher than she had ever been, and just as she thought she might leave the earth altogether, she felt heavy and began to fall again – down, down, down – plop – into a tiny stream. Here she drifted for some time. She felt better now, in a familiar element; the stream was a happy one, sparkling and giggling as it flowed over colored stones. Her curiosity returned and she began to explore the sunny reaches and shady retreats – once she nearly got a sharp nip from an old eel she disturbed!
Just as she was about to pick a sweet water cress for lunch, she was dragged by the current into darkness. The stream had gone underground. It was very quiet down there, she could just see in the dim light; and what a wonderland it was. Gleaming pillars of limestone columns and shawls shimmered and glittered; tiny bats flitted shadow-like just over her head. Strange white fish, quite blind, swam out to greet her by touching her fingertips.
The Nereid would have liked to stay in the river caves forever, but the stream had different ideas; she felt a breath of warm air on her face, and in a few minutes she was swimming along in the sunlight again.
The stream had joined several others along the way, and although larger, it was not equally happy, being somewhat muddy even. Houses and farms appeared more often along the bank, and soon the stream joined the big river. Now she knew where she was; this great waterway led to the sea, her true home, so she began swimming strongly with the current.
The fiver flowed through the clamorous city, the water was very dirty now, but she swam on, not looking to left or right. Tugboats swamped her with their wash, and a large freighter almost sucked her down into its churning propeller.
At least she smelt salt, she must be close now! Yes, there it was, the entrance to the sea. Oh how sweet was the clear, green salt water. How she longed to play in its cool depths. But she swam on, up along the coastline – until she recognized the craggy cliffs and the black rock -shelf. There she knew her little sea man would be; she asked several passing waves to carry her up onto the rocks, but they were all too small.
“Perhaps I can help?” the voice came from some distance off, and she saw a green wall of water rise up – higher and higher. It picked her up as if she were a leaf – and washed her onto the rocks in a surge of white foam. There she saw her friend, she ran up to him, flinging her arms around his stiff, white neck. By now even his eyes were white – he was quite lifeless. Tears streamed down her face, she touched his eyelids, willing them to open – but they did not. She sadly turned back to the sea to which she knew she must return – she had arrived too late. But wait, was that a movement? She was sure Salty’s little finger moved, the one her tears fell upon. It did more! And now his hand – and his small, strong arms. He was turning into his old self again. Oh joy, they embraced quickly before running to catch a wave. It washed them back to the safety of the deep. Hand-in-hand they swam, deeper and deeper.
“There it is, the coral garden – what a story I have to tell my fishy friends, I can’t wait for them to come out of school!” cried Salty.
“Let’s have a game of hide-and-seek while we’re waiting.” Said the Nereid – if they haven’t swum away, they’re probably playing there still.
And so it went for the 12 or so consecutive ‘content’ days of this marvelous ‘Discovery’ unit – a different story each day; but often with the same characters, with each tale outlining a distinct water cycle. The Indina Sisters knew them all of course – ‘Been there, done that!’ they thought, or they would have thought, if they had been humans instead of Undines.
They followed the plots intently day after image-filled day, as the various Water Beings (‘liquid elementals’) metamorphosed through the many conditions in which they manifest, like: snow; rain; dew; ice; mist; cloud; jelly; frost; heavy…heavy? The Sisters hadn’t heard of that one! But then they’d never been imprisoned in a nuclear reactor – ‘heavy water’ indeed! Then there were organic and inorganic compounds (blood and sulfuric acid); hot water; steam…
The stories also contained the many tasks water, or in its broader sense liquid, performs. This informed the children, imaginatively at least, of the marvelous substance water is. The Teacher knew that this lesson was a ‘heart’ precursor to the 5 Chemistry (‘head’) main lessons the children would later enjoy through the 5 years of high school (with many corollary lessons as well). So it was important to seed the soul with key facts on both the supersensible and physical properties/behavior of water.
Some of the water tasks he wove into the stories were: cooling; warming; cleaning; diluting; softening; artistic expression (the Indina Sisters beamed with pride at this one, recalling a Class 2 Watercolor Painting block lesson they attended way back in Ancient India); growing; healing; transporting…then The Teacher ran out of ideas. In a quiet moment, the girls had to whisper in his inner ear to include drinking (Lord Shiva – how could he forget that one!!); dissolving; baptism and celebratory…
That’s not all they had to tell him; he had to be reminded to approach the subject from the Big Picture, the Hydrosphere, that sensitive membrane, the liquid mantle of the earth. This manifests in the seas, lakes, rivers, ice caps, and even underground in artesian water.
Perhaps he could draw a subtle connection between the lunar-influenced hydrosphere, and its human equivalent, the cerebral (moon) fluid. He might also look at the chemical mysteries of the old alchemists, with their supersensible understanding of water – this astral element in which lives the moving etheric forces. It is these that make water the element of Life – which motivates the moving, sliding, laminal pathways of inner vitality in water. This is so unlike the mineral element, with its fixed, crystalline structures – or the air, darting and dancing in ordered mayhem!
Somehow The Teacher must capture the yearning nature in water (mirrored in the human soul, as it strives to escape gravity and return to its spiritual home. (‘Heavy water my foot!’ thought the footless Indina Sisters). This yearning is expressed in the mystery of the meander; modern science still can’t figure out why water, trickling down a shallow incline (like a flat river valley), forms those characteristic serpentine forms. The India Sisters knew – it was because, with the gravitational drag at a minimum, the water thinks it can go back to whence it came. So it tries to turn around; but this only works for a while, before 01’ Gravity’s pull compounds, and the water/river reluctantly flows downhill again, creating a meander. Even the curve of a falling water drop, or those wave ‘tubes’ whizzed through by surfboard riders, is an expression of this nameless yearning – this drawing back to its ethereal origins.
The girls didn’t have to remind him of water’s relationship with the moon (water, or its spiritual blueprint, was created on Old moon); lunar images come naturally into water stories, like aspects of tidal effects. Shakespeare’s statement that the moon is ‘the watery star’ is further confirmation, as is the menstruation of the ‘moon cycles’ of women.
The etheric, or life principle, lives in water, it is not water, but has chosen the liquid element as its earthly home. The first law of etheric life is movement, so story images can show the relationship between moving water and life-generation. These stories are so appropriate to the ‘movement’ middle lessons. The most moving of The Seven Sea Sisters is the Southern Ocean. (Rider of the White Wale as one tale depicts it.) Here we have the greatest oxygenation (air), and hence the most prolific life, yes, even more than the tropics! Teeming seas of krill and massive fish schools support the biggest eaters on earth, the great whales – great water-drops that they are!
The water in a running (moving), aerated stream is more living than that of a stagnant one – stagnant means ‘to stop’. Steiner-inspired ‘flow forms’ utilize this principle in water purification. In the children’s drawings and paintings of the Water Cycle Stories, this motive element in content and technique was regularly impressed upon them – ‘No hard outlines please, let the drawing flow.’
“After all,” whispered the Indina Sisters to a half listening teacher “it was the Dynamis, or Spirits of motion, who initiated the Ancient Moon planetary condition; so their laws are impressed into the liquid world. If you want something to move smoothly, you lubricate it, add liquid – hey! That’s another water task, lubrication!”
The middle lesson ‘Discovery’ or etheric stream, further devolves into 3, serving the will, feeling and thinking soul needs of the children with a unit each on the Physical, Life and Human Worlds respectively. The Water Cycle Stories of Class 2 (a year when the etheric development is under the aegis of the Dynamis actually) is the will, or physical world 3-week middle lesson for the year.
This seems especially appropriate in Australia, which is the driest continent on earth. Drier still since Europeans arrived, with their mind-numbing policy of de-forestation – on an already near-bald country!”
“Hey, why is the water foaming in that bottle?!” cried The Teacher
“In Libya they are planting huge acreages of – plastic trees! These are absorbent, drawing in air-borne moisture under the condensing forces of the cold desert nights. This water is transpired in a concentrated area during the day, resulting in cloud formation – and hopefully rain. And we still cut real trees down in a drought-ridden land; trees which do the job so much better than Gaddafi’s ersatz arborium!”
“Don’t forget history!” called out the Indina Sisters in their silent way “remember Lemuria? That was a water world, a kind of material recapitulation of Ancient Moon. (Though you wouldn’t use these esoteric terms with the children.) Its Lotus Cultures surround the whole Indian Ocean Basin (the ‘Golden Crown’ Sea Sister). That is until man’s reprehensible soul forces acted chemically on the turbulent ‘waters’, making them inflammable – like petrol! This incinerated the whole continent! The human remnants escaped, mainly to their next continental home, Atlantis, this was also a water continent, but tis time more of a swamp, with mineralization vastly progressed.
And then they did it again! Due to the ‘sin’ of mankind, portrayed in the story of Noah, this time the people brought on their heads a watery end. Who knows what these humans are going to do in this, the 5the Epoch, the Aryan? We do worry (The girls always use the collective pronouns, as so all elementals.) about the state of world air today. With the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, smog etc. – maybe a gaseous disaster is imminent – a global suffocation!”
The Indina Sisters, when they weren’t giving advice, or ‘providing inspiration’ as they would call it, would watch The Teacher skillfully control his ebullient children using ‘element’ knowledge. His choleric pupils, with their dominant astral bodies (water element) compensating for their fiery natures, were examples of the eternal duality of fire and water. A condition, if in balance, which is of great benefit to the world and man – but if either is in excess, as seen say in an Australian bushfire, disaster strikes. But these holocausts are almost always followed – indeed extinguished – by rain, floods even!
The phlegmatic (a word associated with liquid – ‘phlegm’) were more of a challenge; they had the physical body dominant, combined with a watery soul nature. Many had the behavioral verve of Old Father Thames, or Old Man River. (Good examples of water personification!) How important it was to bring some fire – some Spirit – into their wet-blanket lives. Indeed inflammable liquids are called ‘spirits’ – methylated spirits for instance, a tautological term meaning ‘spiritual spirit’!
“I hope he doesn’t forget some references to ‘water cultures’ through the ages.” said the Indina Sisters to each other(?) “Like the sacred river culture of India, or the cultivation of the Feminine Mysteries in Babylon, on the Tigris-Euphrates – and the Nile…
And what about the various conditions of water? Such as well; spring; salt; polluted…! Why not? We have to touch the children’s feelings so that they can grow up to respect the Blood of the World – becoming even its future guardians. And what about hydro-electric water-use? Here the water’s life is destroyed by the violence of the machine, as the water is forced at speed through the demonically spinning turbines. The original sparkling, snow-fed river water becomes turgid and sulky in the giant reservoirs.
And what a great story is that of a glacier! Oh, and don’t forget poison.”
“Poison?” queried The Teacher, picking up on the now animated voices of his two consultants – even some of the more sensitive children could hear them!
“Yes, poison; water is the element of the astral world (remember, the etheric only lives in liquid). Both astral and water express as blue; when this astrality condenses too much, water becomes poison, manifesting mainly in the sea through so many blue invertebrates. The Blue-ringed Octopus; Bluebottle, Jellyfish (the highly lethal Box Jelly in particular, where the blue deepens into red-violet); the…”
“The Coneshell.” It was a small, stocky girl with red hair and blue eyes.
“How did you know what we’re talking about?” said The Teacher.
“I heard them mention poison -?”
“Yeees – that’s a misuse for ill of the intrinsically pure nature of water…hang on! I’m suppose to present these images in story form. Now children, tomorrow we’ll have a story about The Milky Way and…”
“that should be good!” enthused everyone, especially the Indina Sisters, who went on; this time so that the children couldn’t hear, especially little Blue-eyes over there! “Milk is the Moon liquid, that which bridges heaven and earth. Perhaps while we’re in the deep past, he might bring in Chiron, the Sagittarian, with his Sense of Taste, based as it is on living chemistry. What about water as sculptor? Look at the ripples in the sand when the tide retreats – an artistic masterpiece every time with every line!
He also should touch on the earth-body wisdom of Permaculture – then the earth-soul mysteries of the Chinese Feng Shui (‘wind water’) – and the most profound of all, that which draws from the mystical well of the Earth Spirit itself, Biodynamic agriculture – and what an apt word it is, ‘life-movement’. All 3 ‘schools’ use water as a first principle of earth health – and by natural extension, human health. And what…”
The Indina Sisters hadn’t noticed that the 3-weeks had slipped by already; they found themselves rudely tipped out on the garden. There they lay for some time “Even Blue Waterlily was saved, The Teacher pressed her between the leaves of a book.” Complained the 2 elementals. They wondered what to do next; how they yearned to return to the heights from which they came, to curve back to the bright, blue arch of heaven. They were still sadly clinging to each other, when a hand of light reached down from the sun; it lifted them up onto a passing cloud, and they floated happily away – in fact that could be them overhead right now!
The Angel of Water – From the Essence Gospel of Peace
From the Heavenly Sea,
The waters run and flow forward
From the never-failing springs
To the dry and barren desert.
The Brothers brought the Angel of Water:
That she might bring forth a garden
and a green place.
Tree-filled and fragrant with flowers.
Cast thyself into the enfolding arms
Of the Angel of Water,
For she shall cast out from thee
All that is unclean and evil.
Let my love flow towards thee, Heavenly Father,
As the river flows to the sea.
And let Thy love flow to me, Heavenly Father,
As the gentle rain doth kiss the earth.
LUCIS AND HESPER
Lucifer Morning Star, glitter-bright eye,
Smiles on the spume, the spangled strand.
He rides the rose-wings of a dawning sky,
Till Winter Sun raises his bright, golden hand.
The Moring Star slowly fades away
To rest the bright hours of an azure day.
Now Hesperus sparkles, the seasons have changed,
He gazes on Earth as she settles to rest.
He smiles on wavelets, on wash and on wake,
As he follows the Summer Sun into the west.
Then Evening Star fades away from sight,
To rest the soft hours of blue-velvet night.
Lucis and Hesper twinkling clear,
Cyclopean rhythm eternal.
Now out of sight; then here half a year,
Divine visitation nocturnal.
Hand in invisible hand they dwell,
Sparkling on surge and sway and swell,
Till their high cosmic odyssey beckons them on,
To follow the sunset, or herald the dawn.
SHOE SHINY SHOE
Shoe Shiny Shoe, nice with one but better with tow,
Shoe shiny Shoe.
I was born in a little shoemaker’s shop,
When you put me on you can dance like a top,
Walk across the land and never need to stop.
But there’s one thing you must do,
Keep me polished just like new,
Care for me and I’ll care for you.
Full music notation in my book 33 Sun songs.
Leave a Reply