Week Three: How Undines Feel and Perceive Water

Undine Empathy On-Line Seminar

(length: 43 pages)

Chapter Three: How Undines Feel and Perceive Water

Objective for Chapter Three:

Sense the energy underlying or within nature—the feeling component within water: a lake, stream, river, pool, waterfall, ocean, iceberg, ocean bay, etc. Each of these has its own physical sensations, etheric or vital energies, and feeling or inner life that it embodies and radiates.

Chapter Outline

Part I: The Feeling or Astral Component in Water

Magical and non magical ways of working with water.

Discern water on the physical, etheric, and astral planes

Imagery of Water

Contemplation and Dialogue Methods for Sensing Feeling

Finding Your Inner Undine or Merman

Video: Inner Undine at

http://williammistele.com/gpinnerundine.wmv

Mental and Akashic Planes of Water

Part II: Re-Dreaming History

Genre of the Modern Fairy Tale

Donavan

Ahmed the Wizard

An Undine Possession

Wonders and Dangers of Fairy Realms

Summary

Part I: The Feeling or Astral Component in Water

Introduction

So far we have explored active listening in Chapter One and magical empathy in Chapter Two. Though we have laid a foundation for undine empathy, we have not as of yet touched its power. To do so, we will need to explore the magic of water.

Undines use water to amplify their ability to perceive and to feel. In this chapter, we will learn how they do this. But do not think that we laying siege to an unknown and forbidden realm.

These abilities should be a part of our culture. In effect, we are just catching up on basic skills that are absolutely essential if our civilization is to survive.

All the same, someone might argue that what I am teaching has been kept secret from mankind for ten thousand years. Be that as it may some of these skills can be learned in a few minutes if the individual can let go of the ego and experience the tender, soothing, and releasing sensations in flowing water. These are simple meditations. You just need to open your heart and your mind at the same time.

Magical and Non Magical Methods in Working with Water

We can recall our past experiences with water. We can interact with water in a casual manner such as through daydreaming. To some extent, we can imagine all the sensations that water produces.

We can be playful—I imagine or recall being on a beach. I feel the spray on my face from waves breaking. I smell the air. I hear the roar from the waves. I watch the wind as its gusts play upon the surface of the lake or the sea. This is all perfectly normal and within everyday modes of brain activity. There is nothing magical about this.

But what if we extend the process? What if I focus on one detail for a minute or more? I imagine I am floating in my favorite tide pool by Makapu’u on Oahu. I linger here. There is a high concentration of salt in the water that helps the body float. I hear the waves pounding on the rocky, volcanic shore twenty feet away. I float with my eyes closed. I let go. All that exists in this moment is the touch of water, its sounds, its smells, it vibrations, and its swirling bubbly action.

And I continue now within a waking dream. How do you do this? By focusing on this imagery to the exclusion of all else. I turn the perceptions of my five senses away from the external world so they are free of distractions. As far as my brain is aware at this moment, I exist within what I am imagining.

This is not self hypnotism. I am not narrowing my awareness. It is enchantment: I am empowering my senses to explore a realm of the imagination.

The water in this dream responds to me. It is ready to show me new sensations and feelings I have never felt before. A shiver of bliss curls down my nerves as if my nerves are the strings of a harp and the winds of my desires and longings begin to play music upon them. Except for this: the notes and melodies are not my own; the musician doing the playing follows themes that use the sensations and feelings of water.

I breathe deep. My chest rises slightly in the water and then sinks slightly again as I exhale. The edges of my body no longer define my identity. My nervous system extends though the pool and then just as easily through the surrounding ocean without limitation. The sensation of water in nature and the internal feeling of being accepted and at peace become interchangeable.

It helps of course that I can stop my mind from thinking. I am here without thoughts occurring. I am focused on the physical sensations and receptive to the faintest nuances of feeling.

It helps also that I do not worry as my ego dissolves into nothing. I am not afraid of becoming nothing or a mirror that is empty and clear.

I linger here. Time—the part of my brain that tracks a sequence of moments unfolding as a linear activity—disengages. The clock in my brain has lost reference to seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, ages, and eons. I could just as easily be dreaming with the sea of that moment when life first took birth and began its journey. Or I could be in that place when the seas shall wash the shores of this planet and mankind shall be no more.

I linger here as the sensations and feelings within my brain conjure images of places familiar like moments of intimacy with women I have known. And just as easily images appear of worlds so far away they have been created by my imagination as a tribute to what I long for.

A therapist might call this free association. A clairvoyant might call it divination. I call it another way of being—it is passing through the gates of dream and imagination to taste the powers of the magnetic fluid and the treasures of spirit hidden within water.

Have I started doing magic yet? Yes. Magic, or in this case, psychic perception, often begins by stopping sensory contact with the external world. If the senses withdraw from external stimulation as occurs during meditation, the body relaxes and there is a slight savings in the amount of energy expended. At this point, the brain can now perceive through the eyes of imagination, dream, or the astral plane.

Turning perception inward, however, subtracts an amount of physical vitality from your body. It puts a tax on your nervous system and it submits a charge to be paid at a later date from the integrity of your personality. It may blur mental clarity or emotional boundaries. Perception involving imagination or altered states of consciousness is creative and offers new information. But it can be expensive in terms of energy.

You have to pay back what has been taken away during your imaginary or psychic journey if you want to return to the light of day—if you want to be, to feel, and to act normal again in this world shared in common with other human beings. A lot of people experience difficulty making the transition between the inner and outer worlds.

I return from my journey of exploration. I have a cup of coffee and notice right away the subtle tensions in my nervous systems that remain. With a breath or a minor mental adjustment I focus and they begin to drain away. The blood vessels dilate and the warmth and circulation return to the parts of my body that experienced a very minor form of hibernation as I focused my attention on another world.

And then the real test appears for both those who use magic as well as for those who use ordinary methods of reflection. The question then is, What part of my experience with watery magnetism can I apply in a way that enriches my life and world? Does the feeling of peace carry over? Do I feel calm, serene, and clear? Or am I still caught in an otherworldly dream that wants me to grasp some truth that is beyond my understanding?

A Study of Water As Sensation and Feeling

Introduction

Imagining water inside of one’s body can create specific sensations and feelings. The feelings, for example, can move from a basic sense of well-being, serenity, and empathy to states such as perfect contentment, perfect love, oneness with another, and a feeling of being one with the universe.

This is an opportunity for men and women to experience the essence of the feminine. A woman can study from within the archetypal energies moving through her. And a man can discover within himself the wonders the feminine possesses. Certainly, to know oneself from the core of your being will require an encounter with your opposite. This essay reveals one means for accomplishing this.

The Basic Exercise

Imagine your body to be completely empty inside like a container or vessel.  Also imagine that you are surrounded by cold water as if you are at the center of a vast ocean.  The cold water is contracting.  Water, of all substances in nature, absorbs heat the most quickly and stores it the longest.  Water holds, contains, and sustains.

Next imagine that water enters your body with each breath as you inhale. Also at the same time water enters through the pours of the body. You breathe in this sensation of cold water until you feel your body is full of water.

In effect, you develop the ability to accumulate and then dissolve the sensations of water both inside and outside of the body. This is a basic exercise in training one’s imagination. Without doing the above, you can simply imagine the inside of your body filled with water. Practicing over time, you produce in your body increasingly strong sensations.

Sensations of Water in the Physical Body

If I focus on my physical body and in particular anything relating to fluids and water, I can sense the flow of blood through my body. Some people can sense the pulse of their blood as it surges through the body and also notice when their heart skips a beat. With experience, you can feel blood flow into parts of your body when you relax them. The blood vessels dilate with the result that there is more blood flow into the area and it becomes warmer.

Actually all fluids within the body are diluted solutions of water. The body contains between 50 to 75 per cent water depending on age, gender, and other factors. The specific fluids such as blood, sweat, tears, lymph, saliva, the cerebro-spinal fluid, and all digestive enzymes are between 96% to 99% water. The brain is about 75% water and the muscles contain nearly as much.

If I concentrate on the flow of blood, immersing myself in this sensation and awareness, I definitely get a sense of its actions—circulating, purifying, nurturing, and reviving. If I focus my imagination on the sense of liquids or water flowing rapidly as blood, I get images of a steam or a river with its rapids and waterfalls.

The Etheric Body

Besides sensations relating directly to the physical body, it is possible to sense a more subtle set of sensations relating to the etheric body. These sensations refer to vitality and health. The etheric body is often encountered in the practice of pranayama, the control of breath. Concentrate for example on your hand. Imagine that with each breath you are breathing vitality directly into your hand. As you practice you may be able to sense increased warmth, a feeling of gradually building pressure, different kinds of intensity of energy, and so forth.

Some of these sensations relate to relaxation. Again, as you relax the blood vessels dilate leading to increased warmth as the blood moves closer to the surface of the skin. But there is something more subtle occurring. In martial arts, it is quite common to learn how to move this vitality, chi, or ki to different parts of the body to enhance health and physical performance.

Vitality has the four elements within it. Sometimes in martial arts, the practitioner focuses on weight and being grounded—the earth element. Sometimes the emphasis is on being light like air, being able to move quickly as if weightless. Other times one focuses on fire and a rapid, forceful expansion of energy outward.

Perhaps the most difficult to imitate or teach in the martial arts is the element of water. The founder of Aikido was a great master of the water element but his personal style was nearly impossible to teach. In some traditions of Chi Kung, the student learns to imitate a cloud or to flow like water through movements that are circling, spiraling, and curling with gentleness and grace, almost like moving slowly under water.

We can pursue the difference between the physical and etheric energies by imagining that the body is empty inside and filled with cool water. If you were immersed in an actual pool of water, you could imagine that the inside of your body has the same water that is surrounding it on the outside. Etheric water is far more refined than physical water. It is the watery, fluid, or flowing aspect of vitality.

I focus on the vitality in my etheric body. Again, I imagine my body is empty inside and that my awareness is only of vitality in its flowing, fluid aspect. What occurs is that I feel extremely relaxed. There is a sense of letting go, calmness, and feeling release. When I do this I am often reminded of floating in a tide pool next to the ocean that has a high salt content. The body floats higher in the water almost as if the entire body is being supported and tension dissolves.

The Astral Body

The astral body pertains to the realm of the soul, to feelings and emotions. The astral body is very sensitive to concrete imagery—to situations, people, and places. The astral body is active, for example, in dreaming. A dream often produces strong emotions even though the circumstances or dramatic situations of the dream are unreal. You respond as if they are real. The astral body is where these emotions occur. The astral is sensitive, receptive, responsive, and impressionable.

When you feel the opposites of happiness and sadness, elation and depression, excitement and boredom, joy and despair, love and hate, etc. these occur within the astral body. Though all emotions produce sensations within the physical body, at this point we are after the way feelings are underneath, behind, or accompanying physical sensations. With practice and being attentive, it becomes easy to notice the differences between the physical sensations accompanying feelings and the feelings themselves.

The astral body also gives a sense of connection to others. It is full of attracting and repelling forces. When individuals fall in love, it is often an astral experience—they are in the astral plane living a dream that two share in common. When individuals break up, the same intensity of feeling may be present but it may change into an opposite, repelling emotional force.

Just as we all have our own unique physical body, we each have a unique astral body. The astral involves our ability to feel alive and to appreciate the world around us. The elements present in the astral body will strongly influence our ability to feel wonder, awe, and beauty as well as experiences with ecstasy and rapture.

Just as we can discuss the four elements in terms of physical sensations in the etheric body and their applications, for example, in the martial arts, we can also describe the four elements in the astral body. In the astral body, fire is not a physical or etheric force. It is a feeling that relates to enthusiasm, courage, confidence, charisma, etc. Air relates to being curious, playful, artistically sensitive, cheerful, etc. Earth relates to being practical, no nonsense, patient, stable, etc.

I imagine my astral body to be similar in shape and size to my physical body and etheric bodies, but more subtle almost like seeing an image of oneself in a mirror or a dream. I imagine it again to be empty, without physical substance. Then I imagine this astral body to be filled with cool water.

In this case, meditating on water in my astral body, I sense feelings specific to water. These are contentment, peace, serenity, and happiness. There is a sense of well-being that is timeless and independent of space, of who I am, where I was born, and where I am now in life. It is just a pure endless sense of peace into which an individual can let go and simple be without having to do anything to earn it.

Imagery of Water in Nature on Three Planes

Here is a simple way to observe the difference between the physical and astral planes. Grasp your lower arm with your other hand. Note the physical sensations relating to the touch of skin on skin and the pressure of your grip.

Now, focus on the hand holding your arm. Without changing the grip, place within this hand the feeling, “I love you with all my heart and soul.” It is a feeling that can be expressed through touch. Note now any difference between the two kinds of touch.

One produces only physical sensations. The second may produce for you in addition an increased sense of warmth, a sense that the touch is penetrating and pervading the entire arm beneath the hand. And there are various feelings associated with emotional bonding: a sense of connection, trust, openness, etc. If you can notice these distinctions in this exercise, you can learn to sense the difference between purely physical sensations relating to water and the astral or emotional life that exists within the particular form of water you are in contact with.

Here are two examples. I place my hands in the sink filled with cool water. There are physical sensations: the embracing touch of the water on my skin; the pressure, the cool temperature contrasting with the rest of my arm. There is a slight chill from the movement of water in the bowl.

Now I focus on the feeling—the astral component--of the water: I sense its adaptability, how it instantly molds itself to whatever it touches, embracing it. I sense the quality of purity—the water’s solubility, and how it cleanses and purifies. I sense how it nurtures and renews. As a feeling, water is also pure receptivity.

A second example: a warm shower. There are the sensations of water on my skin. There is the heat and the sounds and moisture in the air. Muscles relax. The mind is draw toward letting go of tension and worries. There is an image in my mind of a waterfall and sunlight shining through the falling drops. The sunlight relates to the heat in the water. The image is produced by free association.

But there is an astral component also. If I focus on the feeling within the water, it is like a golden light flowing through the center of my body. The light is healing, reviving, and nurturing.

For someone who is psychic, when you place your hand in water, the water feels alive. The energy in your hand brings the water to life. It is not a chemical reaction. It is how the life force or vitality in the hand is amplified and shaped by the presence of the water.

Consider again nature imagery. We can use a simple form of contemplation: focus on some scene in nature and allow your mind to be still like a mirror. Hold the image before your attention so that nothing else is present in your awareness. Then notice the sensations and feelings that arise in your body. You can also enter the image, moving in and through it or identifying completely with it.

With the image of a lake, I have sensations of being calm, open, receptive, and gathering in. The feelings are contentment, peacefulness, and hope.

With a waterfall, in addition to water falling through air and splashing, there is a sparkling effervescence and a renewal of life.

In a river, I let go and move with the flow, yielding to gravity’s pull drawing me to join with the distant sea. The sensation of letting go into the flow also has a feeling: there is a majestic sense of being connected to water as it moves from sea to sky to rain returning again into a river. It is feeling part of a greater whole that nurtures the entire biosphere.

Consider being inside of an iceberg frozen in a bay at the North Pole. The sensations are icy cold, frozen, and still. The feelings are an inner stillness, a mirror like reflection, and an otherworldly observing of life from a distance of time and space.

Consider a mountain pool with a small water fall. Hold this image before you mind. Imagine sitting or floating in the pool. Try becoming the pool so that nothing else is in your awareness than this imagery. As I do this, I have the sensations of flowing, bubbly water. The movement of water is gentle.

There are etheric sensations relating to the nature of vitality: flowing energy that is cool, relaxing, releasing, easing, etc. And there are astral feelings such as serenity, purity, and happiness—a welling up and overflowing of well-being from inside.

Other Methods

I have given some examples of how different images of water in nature might evoke in us different feelings. But this may not always be easy. I spent time recently gazing on Lake St. Clair near Detroit and nothing happened. No astral component appeared. The lake was just a lake.

Here are several other methods for sensing an astral component in water.

Contemplation Method

If we use the example of a lake, contemplate the lake in its natural environment. Notice how it exchanges energy, heat, and nutrients with the surrounding environment. Notice how water moves into and out of it in various ways.

Add to this periods of time, seasons, and ages. Notice weather and climate changes. In other words, imaginative review the history of the lake from its formation to the present day and perhaps into the future.

When I do this with Lake St. Clair, I get a sense of great strength. The lake arose from an ice age. It was formed from rivers. Its depth changes with yeas and the climate. It has seen a lot of change and yet it endures and in many ways remains the same. There is great joy hidden within it.

I can also imagine that I am the lake and as the lake that I am looking back at myself. As the years pass by, it flows and maintains its life and form while I have gone racing about pursuing many different things.

I have met women who feel like this lake. The movement of events in the outer world are insignificant compared the serenity and feeling of life they have within themselves. The flow far more than I do. Their feeling are more pure and happiness remains alive within them like a artesian well overflowing with happiness.

The Dialogue Method of Discovering the Astral or Feeling Component in Water

If you can visualize easily, this method may work for you. Gaze at some image of water in nature. Again, I pick Lake St. Clair. Gazing at it, I do not get much feeling. But there is something—a faint stirring in my chest that reminds me of the many ways the wind forms waves on this lake.

Now, I take that sensation or feeling and translate it into the form of a woman. That is, I ask myself, if the feeling were a woman, what would she look like? In effect, I am imagining that the lake has a soul and is now appearing and speaking to me through the sensations in my own body.

The woman who appears is about twenty-six years old. She not Caucasian, more likely native American or older. She is a shaman. I know this by the degree of inner silence she has within her.

She takes me into the night out at the center of the lake and says, “See these stars above? They each have songs they sing as does the galaxy and the entire universe. Why are you not listening? I listen to these songs every night regardless of the weather, the season, or the age.

“Though you may never find a woman like me among your race, yet I am here and you have sailed upon my waves and felt my spray upon your face. We have the same ears. Know this: if you listen to the songs of the stars you will not be alone. You will be one with my heart.”

Well then, I think that explains in part why I did not at first get a sense of Lake St. Clair’s astral component. She is a very profound lake and her feelings run very deep. I am a little embarrassed that I have not been more careful in the past to notice the feeling that her waters contain.

I might ask, Is this woman I imagined pure fantasy or is there something real about her? The purpose of the dialogue method is to bring us into a powerful contact with feelings outside of normal awareness. The image of the woman did that. She put me in touch with the astral component of the lake.

To put it another way, the image of the woman gives form to something that is pure energy, pure feeling with a receptivity and capacity to respond and to interact. I could probably go out and find a mermaid in the lake. But at this point the task is not to find a mermaid but to perceive and feel as a mermaid might do. The exercise empowers me to do that.

Finding Your Inner Undine or Inner Merman

You can view this brief video either before or after reading the following section. I have met woman who have not connection to the realm of undines and yet who have the aura of a mermaid or undine.

Mermaids, for example, sometimes have the aura of a specific image of water in nature—a small or great waterfall, a lake, an ocean, an ocean trench, the N. Atlantic Current, an ocean bay, stormy waves on the open sea, etc. And they have the astral component that goes with that image.

Their auras have the sensations and feelings of water. I can observe this. I am not at this point aware precisely how they acquired such a rich connection to the water element. I call this kind of woman, a woman with a mermaid’s aura, an undine woman.

These women are fairly rare since our entire civilization is focused on the other three elements. However, we can all learn to develop and strengthen our ties to the water element. In this sense, we all have an inner undine or merman lucking within us waiting to awaken.

Video: Inner Undine

http://williammistele.com/gpinnerundine.wmv

Note: I wrote the poem in the video for the model the night before we did the shoot.

Some will say, “She is just another model.” But I am not brain dead. There are of course some girls who hang out on the North shore of Oahu and surf forty hours a week. They are out there sitting on the waves on their surf boards. They even surf sometimes at night. They may swim down thirty feet and spear a fish for dinner after surfing all day.

Now if you were a mermaid, with whom would you find it easier to connect? Someone with a wand and a robe in a magic circle evoking or invoking nature spirits to the four quarters? Or a girl who shares the same sensations of water and wind that you have felt for thousands of years?

I ask in all seriousness how many ritual magicians will ever actually meet one of these “surfer chicks” whom the undines love? It is not about will or intellect. It is about the soul—the ability to let go and flow.

And so I made this little video because the girl contains hidden within her soul a vision of the goddess of the sea. I see it. I sense it. It is perfectly clear to me. The video is a drama about the choice she or any young woman might make in accepting the invitation or else going on a quest to meet her inner undine.

To feel like an undine or merman: I focus exclusively on water in my etheric and astral bodies. I also imagine water to be around the outside of my etheric and astral bodies extending for a vast distance. When I do this I invariably get a sense of the way undines feel—I am a part of anything that is near to me; or, as a merman, I feel united to the life and vibration within water--I am committed to preserving, expanding, and clarifying magnetic fields produced by water. This is my vocation and my soul. I celebrate magnetism in all my actions.

This exercise seems to grant an affinity for any way in which water appears in nature. For me, it is a life altering meditation. The boundaries between the body, either physical or astral, dissolve and my awareness, senses, and nervous system extend outward into wider fields of energy. This is essentially the basis for the merman/mermaid sense of identity. It produces a profound state of well-being and inner peace.

For those who master this, whatever makes life special is always near to them. They can find it within themselves, touch it as a bodily sensation, and feel its closeness and support.

Those who practice magic often balance the four elements either within their bodies or when they evoke the four elements at different points of a magic circle. In this way, an equilibrium or balance of opposites is achieved through ritual. From my point of view, the problem with this approach is that once the individual steps out of his magic circle he enters a civilization that does not have a balance between the four elements.

If you rated the knowledge of the elements in terms of Western civilization, earth, air, and fire would be up in the eighty percentile as far as our scientific and technological applications are concerned. Water, however, is far weaker. It would be around three or four per cent of its usable capacity. The psychological and spiritual aspects of water are very poorly understood.

When I practice the water on the etheric and astral levels inside and outside of my body, as I mention, I develop a strong sense of being connected to the domains of the mermen and mermaids. However, I come from an overwhelmingly strong masculine culture. It is characterized by dynamic will and power directed toward changing the external world. It has almost no self-reflective capacity. There is no tradition of contemplation. There is no awareness of the light within the psyche or of the opportunities to explore and deepen awareness of the soul.

Being able, then, to evoke in myself merman awareness within a minute or less of meditating is a staggering achievement for me. It is an encounter with my opposite. It is like evoking in my self the essence of the feminine as it exists within nature and spirit. Here is a poem that comments on this experience:

There comes a time when the white knight

Climbs off his mighty warhorse with burnish’d hooves

Takes off his armor, his brazen greaves

And feathered helmet too,

To sit beside a still lake and simply wait

To find happiness, and yes, infinite peace inside himself

Without having first to rescue and then possess

A fair maiden in distress.

Look at him! In his soul all the waters of the earth

And simple human contentment intermingle and flow—

This I know.

According to the poem, the opposite of a man is not a woman. It is the feminine within him joined to the feminine within nature. This includes the abilities to form within oneself many of the qualities already mentioned: an inner peace with the universe, profound abilities involving empathy and caring for others, and a feeling of being fully alive that arises naturally from out of the sensuality of five senses.

A man may be able to taste these things through a relationship with a woman. But it is next to impossible for him to internalize these qualities within himself by depending on a woman to somehow transfer them to him. Though love is a fabulous experience, it is easy for a man to use a woman as a substitute for the spiritual quest his entire world would prefer to deny.

To summarize, we have all felt the delight and enchantment, the peace and well-being that exists in nature. Some cultures have attributed these feelings to the presence of magical beings—fairies and such. But even without turning to magic for an explanation, we can say that nature awakens feelings of peace and contentment that already exists within us.

What the human race is not very good at is exploring and extending these feelings. We do not yet know how to amplify them or produce them at will. The undines have a lot to say on this point. They embody states of peace and serenity that are well beyond anything we encounter in our daily lives. But there is a way of focusing and a level of concentration that can allow us to pass through the gates of our senses and feel and perceive as undines. This essay is a step in that direction.

What is it like then to feel one has become a mermaid or merman? Among other things, it is to experience “a love that flows without ever being lost and gives all of itself in every moment.”

The Mental Body

The mental body is again in the form of the physical body but more refined or subtle than the astral body. It relates to ideas, thinking, and analyzing. Unlike the astral body with its sensitivity and response to concrete images and situations, the mental body works with abstractions. We size up situations and solve problems with our minds. The mental body is rooted in concentration and attention. Here we choose when and how we focus our attention. Forming plans, setting priorities, and determining time frames and means for fulfilling our purposes are mental plane activities.

Experiences with the astral body are more personal and emotionally engaging. Mental body experiences are more detached, almost as if we are observing something from a third person rather than a first person perspective. Too much mental emphasis and an individual may be excessively detached and aloof. Too little mental emphasis and an individual loses clarity and perspective.

If I imagine my mental body to be filled with water, I find myself exploring the deeper aspects of serenity, stillness, and clearness. There are also magical forms of perception. The mental body filled with water can act like a magic mirror or crystal ball. You can feel reflected in yourself the life within any other being.

As I shall describe later on when I discuss the auras of various undine queens, water on the mental level also creates nurturing environment. It designs and oversees the circumstances under which others can experience the highest learning curve. In other words, the feminine spirit when mature has the capacity to sense the best way for others to grow—the rhythms, cycles of life, and the elements that need to be present for life to flourish.

Akashic or Spiritual Body

The spiritual body is an intuitive level of awareness that operates independent of thought, feeling, or physical forms though it may express itself through any of these. In other words, it is consciousness that does not identify or define itself through any specific form. It can also penetrate through space and time with its awareness or intuition.

On this level, we experience universal aspects of water such as cosmic or all-embracing love. There is a sense of presiding over the ideals that guide and inspire all beings. We sense the one life that flows through all of us. On this level, we feel one with all beings and also an inner peace so deep we feel one with the universe.

Part II: Re-Dreaming History

Introduction

In fantasy writing, magic is a useful literary device--it appears at first to be subject to our control. But to master magic one must master the self. And that quest is where the great magicians fail.

The real magic is in the choices we make that change us from who we are into who we are meant to be. This change comes when life touches us with wonder. We can prepare for such an event, but when this happens it often comes from the Otherside or the next world.

This theme is at the center of A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip, and The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Equally, wonder is at center of my writing.

What if I am correct when I say that mankind has had astonishingly little contact with the realm of undines? Can we just do some exercises, make contact with this realm, and then start embodying its mysteries in ourselves? If we do so, do we then lack a context in which to understand our experiences?

There is nothing like a story to fill in when something is missing from life. A story gives us insights into questions such as, How do others deal with this situation? What dangers should we watch for? What good things are there to be found? How do we clarify the choices that we will must make when someone from one evolution makes contact with someone from another evolution?

I have filled in for what is missing by inventing a new genre of fairy tales. These first three stories provide a rough beginning. But the stories become more interesting later on. The undine queens have taken an interest in my art and have sent me women who tell me stories that have never before been written.

Aspects of Modern Fairy Tales

There are seven aspects to the genre of modern fairy tales I write. First, the spirits in modern fairy tales do not belong to a specific ethnic or national group. Instead, they have a global outlook. Their sphere of action is the entire biosphere.

Second, the kings and queens of the four elements are not creatures of imagination and so by definition inferior or of no significance to human beings. By interacting with them, we discover that they are more knowledgeable about nature than our scientists. Furthermore, they possess abilities and powers that we have yet to acquire in the near or far future. In this sense, they are our teachers. In terms of the elements in which they specialize, their actions and responses indicate that they are not less but more human than we are.

Third, unlike past writers who simply gathered existing folk tales into collections, I have had to travel at least half way to the Otherworld to get the best stories. It is possible to enter the realm of fairies, in this case, the realm of undines, and learn to act, perceive, feel, and think as one of these beings. The stories, then, include first-hand reports and recount the details of journeying between the realms.

Fourth, traditional fairy tales often take place “once upon a time.” By contrast, mythical time and history interact in modern fairy tales. Consequently, it is possible to find living human beings who have powerful connections and extensive experience with the fairy realms.

For example, some individuals are simultaneously active in both human and undine evolutions. Though they appear in human form, they possess the full powers and psychic abilities they either acquired or previously possessed when they sojourned in these other spiritual realms. Through interviews and careful listening, it is possible to observe through their experience wonder, awe, and beauty rising to the level of the sacred and divine.

Fifth, the genre of the modern fairy tale is genuine mythology. It asks these questions: Why are we here? What are the deepest purposes of life? What are our options?

The writer of a fairy tale, like the writer of mythology, finds himself in a position where he repeatedly encounters experiences that no previous systems of explanation can comprehend. So he tells a new story that in essence declares: Our conflicts can be resolved; in spite of the horrors and suffering, it is possible to walk the path of life in harmony and beauty.

For example, I ask the undine queen to share her secret desires and innermost dreams. If you ask this question to the right spirit in a magical realm, the answer inevitably produces a profound change in yourself. The story that results may offer a new definition of human nature.

Sixth, the fairy tale is a study of how human consciousness can be expanded. At present, we extend our perception of the world by using physical objects such as microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. We enhance our movements by using cars, trains, ships, and planes. To be more productive, we use laboratories, factories, mines, and refineries.

From the point of view of the kings and queens of the elements, there is nothing wrong with human science. The problem is that our consciousness operates within a narrow band of awareness. Our nervous system ends at the surface of our bodies. Our five senses are dependent on physical organs.

By contrast, nature spirits utilize energy fields to extend their nervous systems, their capacity for perception, as a means to directly interact with the physical world. For example, the undine queens identify their consciousness with the magnetic fields of the oceans and all the waters of the earth. Anything that water touches they can touch also.

Since undines specialize in love, empathy, and ecstasy, from their point of view, the human race is still asleep. Or, as one mermaid put it, “human beings are part dead.” She was not being sarcastic. She was describing the difference between how she feels in human form as compared to when she is a mermaid in the sea. By definition, then, fairy tales communicate new forms of perception in an effective and persuasive manner.

Seven, fairy tales not only outline new destinies for mankind, but they also warn us of possible dangers. For conscience to operate effectively, the five elements earth, air, fire, water, and akasha must be equally developed and in balance.

However, water, which supports love, feeling, and empathy, is profoundly weak in our civilization. What is perfectly natural for an undine or a woman with undine empathy—to sense instantly what anyone else on earth feels in this moment—is almost unheard of in our civilization.

One result is that when a scientist makes a breakthrough, offering mankind some new power, the technology inevitably falls into the hands of malicious dictators and dominating political regimes. This is a collective failure of conscience. It is an indictment of mankind.

Undine empathy enables individuals to discern immediately whether another person is healthy, loving, and harmonious or the opposite. For undines, we are all equally part of the magnetic field that encircles this planet. In the modern fairy tale, the myth of separation is overcome. We all share a collective responsibility for each other and for the planet as well.

In summary, in a traditional fairy tale, the elements of the story are treated as if the story is real, even though the tale is considered to be fiction. The writer makes up his own rules and the reader suspends belief in order to enjoy the story. In a modern fairy tale, you can “observe these things for yourself and draw your own conclusions.”

In a modern fairy tale, belief is never the issue. Though some individuals report these stories as first-hand experience, the heart of the story involves encounters with wonder, awe, bliss, and ecstasy. Along the way, we are offered suggestions on how to extend our perception and expand our consciousness.

In a nutshell, the undine queens are not less human. They are our teachers. All their powers and abilities are latent within us. The modern fairy tale tells us that nature still waits for us to discover its mystery and beauty.

The Story: Poor Donovan

It is like this: Often the songs of gods and goddesses arise from our dreams and the lips of priests, poets, and mystics. But this is not the case with Istiphul. She is not a goddess, but an intelligence dwelling within nature, and she existed before the human race was born. In fact, many magicians have met their fate at the hands of her beauty and charms.

Take, for example, poor Donovan. He was a little too adventurous for his own good with those eyes of his. He possessed second sight and could spy into the mysteries of fairy realms.

He once walked the shores of Ireland, not far from Dublin. Donovan knew well the charms and the cold call of the sea, for his father was a fisherman, though, oddly enough, some say he had noble blood in his veins.

At night Donovan could hear the songs in the stars and they shone even brighter for him than for Van Gogh. He could see the inner essence of whatever he gazed upon. The ocean waves and their spray continuously called for him to dance and play in a place of pure delight.

Though Donovan had no formal magical training, he did not need to use a familiar or a conjured spirit to gain a woman. He could hold the image of a maiden’s face in his mind’s eye for five hours. As he concentrated, the maiden would then walk fifteen miles to his house to spend a night with him even if she were a virgin—such was his telepathic power of suggestion and the nature of his erotic imagination.

One night Donovan dreamed of Istiphul, who dwells under the sea. He saw her dancing naked and from that moment it was more than wonder and curiosity that motivated him. He wanted to know her charms. He wanted to taste her beauty, though his conscience informed him he could neither stare her down, nor bind her with his voice, nor hold her with his mind’s might.

One day, agitated and unable to bear the torment of his desires any longer, Donovan sent his mind into the sea. The power of his intuition was such that he could already feel Istiphul’s touch. And so he was not surprised when an emerald path of light lit up as he wandered in search of Istiphul beneath the waves.

Donovan went directly to Istiphul’s palace. She greeted him at the gate and invited him in. For as “the sea refuses no river,” Istiphul refuses none who wish to know the mysteries of love.

Her charms, like the beauty of nature, are for all to taste. Her embrace is for all to receive—her magic is like sunlight, moonlight, starlight, dawn, and twilight. Who would conspire to bind or confine beauty such as this? Who would blind our eyes and deny such wondrous gifts because they do not fall within the boundaries of human morality?

Perhaps I should state my case in a different way. What general has ever refused to stock his arsenal with a weapon because it gave him an unfair advantage over his enemy? What scientist has ever refused to probe a secret of nature because some things are best left unknown? Or what poet has ever said, “These poems I write should be locked away, perhaps burnt someday, because they are too beautiful to behold.”

I do not think Donovan’s infatuation was unnatural or his quest excessive. Instead, I would say this: Donovan did not adequately prepare himself. He did not honor the mystery he sought to embrace. He did not create a sacred space where he and the undine could meet on equal terms. He did not hold in his heart that wisdom every true magician knows: when to guard the boundaries of the world and when to dissolve them for the sake of love.

This is what happened: Istiphul’s touch and embrace were so compelling, so mind altering, poor Donovan forgot there was a Donovan left without a mind back on the shore not far from Dublin. To wit, Donovan forgot to return to his body.

So strong can be the power of desire that breath, heartbeat, and the hunger of the flesh are not enough to stay the quest for gratification. This was such an example. Young Donovan’s body fell into a coma. Without a soul, the body did not last very long, only a day or so. It soon grew cold and the heart forgot how to beat—there was no sign that Donovan’s soul would soon return.

So let us say for the sake of argument, if you wish for an explanation, that Donovan’s soul was out of its element. When the season of desire had passed, his soul sought again the shore of life and found another body in which to be born. This was a boy child who, when he grew to be a man, found work far from the sea.

A desert would not be dry enough for his liking! He did not wish to hear any reminder of that terrible, heart-wrenching longing and soul-shattering call of the ocean. Hidden in waves and even in the taste of salt was that specter of beauty with which the sea called, “Come Donovan, I will be your lover again; come far from land and be with me under the sea—ride your dreams to me, young Donovan.”

However, it was not Istiphul who called but only his own past life memory and unfortunate obsession. The man was haunted by the choice of another too faint to recall, who unwisely sought to have intercourse with an unfathomable beauty, a beauty wisely hidden in the mysterious depths of the sea.

The Story: Ahmed the Wizard

There are a great many tales I could tell about Istiphul. But these pertain directly to issues that must be addressed if I am to reveal Istiphul to the world. Consider this story about Ahmed the Wizard.

Ahmed, with the power of Merlin, could summon Istiphul and keep her with him. But Ahmed did not realize that when it comes to the intricacies of magic and the heart, the issues are seldom those of the subtle nuances of servitude and domination, of mastery over nature, or of Mars over Eros. When dealing with Istiphul, the issues are altogether different.

Ahmed was a giant man. He had a thick neck and dark eyes with an uncanny, penetrating gaze. He had a lion’s roar for a laugh. And though Ahmed was jovial most of the time, when he was not, he sometimes had a fiendish look on his face. An insatiable hunger was devouring him from inside.

But what was his hunger for? For knowledge? For mysterious ways to gain power? For some dark mystery hidden beyond the stars? Who could ever really say for sure? After all, as everyone knew back in that age, magicians and wizards are half-breeds. Their bloodlines mix with that of dragons or salamanders, devils or angels, creatures known or unknown, or celestial beings galore.

Of course, I am not arguing for the existence of angels or demons. I wish only to point out that at times we experience hungers and desires that are stronger than us, and that defy our attempts to understand them. But there are always a few individuals who will hold nothing back in seeking to master what is hidden within them.

I speak of wizards and bards. But this is because they usually make it a vocation to pursue the mystery and beauty of life. They will stop at nothing. They will risk sorrow, loss, and regret in order to fulfill their quests.

They may be wise or foolish, possessed of high ideals or corrupt. But they know better than to rely on secondhand information or hearsay evidence when it comes to experiencing life. It is not that they violate morality or disregard science or reason. It is that they seek to be complete in ways unknown to society.

As for Ahmed? His approach was systematic and experimental. His will was implacable as he sought to comprehend the energies underlying nature. Though, like any scientist, Ahmed preferred empirical observation, in a pinch he would use magic to supplement his methods.

And so, one day Ahmed gazed upon his crystal ball in search of the mystery of water. With his clairvoyant vision, he beheld that vast, magnetic field of energy—the sea—that cloaks this planet in unfathomable beauty. Then he spoke aloud, as was his custom. He drew a sigil or two in the air. He burnt a little incense. He set a jewel in the sunlight in front of a mirror. He waved his hand over a silver bowl filled with sea water. And then he spoke to his crystal with a quiet voice that resonated throughout the room.

This is what he said:

Show me the sea and the spirit that dwells within it. Show me her essence, pure and clear. Show me that creature so hidden that mortals are forbidden to speak of her. Bring her for me to see, to feel, to smell, to taste, to touch. Materialize her presence so she is real! Transport her here and now. I will have nothing less than her caress to ease the pain within my soul!

You may begin to understand Ahmed from those words. He, too, was a bold adventurer. He had a good sense of command, an iron will, massive power, and, of course, a hunger like a raging dragon.

With the intensity of air the instant before lightning strikes, Ahmed prepared to bind another to his will. Few spirits could resist—even I must admit, Ahmed had the typical profile of a wizard belonging to a small and elite social class. Obviously, Ahmed was more focused than poor Donovan, and probably not likely to lose his body due to infatuation.

Within moments after he called Istiphul, Ahmed’s crystal filled with a cold, softly burning light. Within that light Istiphul appeared. This was not an image and it was not a reflection. It was a direct link—an unmistakable presence.

Ahmed’s first thought was:

What is this? A garden in the wilderness? An oasis within the eye of a desert? A well of living water? I

see a light that shines even amid the greatest darkness of the soul! A light that can pierce Vishnu’s knot in

an instant!

And there he sat, entranced, neither blinking nor moving, his breathing undetectable. Ahmed dared not lose even for a moment what he held in his gaze—tracing every thread of the connection, memorizing it, analyzing it, devouring the pathway that linked his mind to Istiphul, who dwells in the sea.

But to Istiphul, Ahmed was a soul haunted by emptiness. A woman might be offended if a man tries to reveal all her secrets and discover the very feelings that arise from the core of her being. She might consider this attempt by a man to be overly aggressive and invasive. But Istiphul is not offended.

With a single note of music, she can beckon the flowing essence of the entire sea—in all its languid and tranquil receptivity and nourishing presence—to caress her shoulders, to shine from her breasts, or to shimmer in the soft curves of her hips. So when it comes to spells of enchantment, or to wagering sheer will power against the distilled essence of beauty, we might do well to place our bets on Istiphul. When it comes to magical, ocean-styled erotic arts and sensory bliss, Istiphul’s skill has no equal on earth.

Istiphul saw that Ahmed viewed himself as a giant cavern beneath the earth—a dark, unknown place. As Ahmed explored these depths, he found that reason and wisdom were unable to light his path or explain the powers he found within himself.

But Istiphul was not uneasy or put off with the discovery that the mystery within another has no boundaries, or is beyond the power of the mind to define. For Istiphul, Ahmed simply had a need like any other—to find a place of peace, a restful place where bliss is unleashed by a caress.

And since Ahmed’s mind was not capable of swallowing the ocean whole, at least not on his own, Istiphul offered her knowledge and the release hidden in the sea: a place of enfolding depths, a place to drift and to float free. Here he could wander in safety. Here is a peace that flows like a stream from the dawn of time to the ends of eternity.

She offered Ahmed a path of beauty, a wilderness belonging to the heart: the sea yields and surrenders itself even as it embraces a thousand beaches and even more islands. Without being less of a man, Ahmed discovered he could relax, let go of his knowledge and quests, and flow with whatever sensation or feeling the moment was revealing.

And so on countless nights, with far more skill than Donovan could ever imagine, Ahmed left his body to walk with Istiphul on all the seas’ beaches. He learned to see through Istiphul’s eyes the night, the sky, and the sand. He listened and learned the ways of the waves as they blessed the shore, curling over each other and caressing one another.

As wizards are want to do, Ahmed could also fill his tower room with the element of water, so much so that the air flowed blue-green and felt thick, wet, and salty. There, Istiphul appeared before him and held him tenderly. She caressed him with waves of magnetic energy. She spoke to him softly of mysteries and wonders that have not entered mankind’s dreams.

And so it was that within this enormous man, who had a fiendish hunger like a giant cavern without end, lay a tranquil sea. At the end of his desire, standing amid the sea, was this beautiful creature. Istiphul already knew far more than Ahmed himself about the roots of his desires: she knew his quest, loneliness, pain, sorrow, tension, and his path of fulfillment.

Istiphul learned from Ahmed as well. When a woman’s intimacy with a man is genuine, it is not difficult for her to learn his secrets or to absorb the internal forces that drive him. For example, Istiphul learned how to focus her powers of attraction so that even a wizard’s will would dissolve. She was no longer content to lapse during spare moments into pure sensuality—to feel at the core of her being the foam sailing free from a thousand waves and the songs of release they were singing.

No, Istiphul learned to focus herself so she could match Ahmed’s level of concentration. To be his counterpart and his equal, she needed to contain the fire burning within him. To this end, she learned how to gather all of her experience, knowledge, and magic and distill it into one feeling. She could then transfer this feeling to Ahmed, as a gift.

Imagine what this would be like: imagine taking all the sensations, feelings, and moods that the seas create; imagine binding that beauty and wild passion into one light, one dream, or one vision of completion—and then to be able to transmit this to another through your eyes, the touch of your skin, or a kiss.

Yet being the object of an undine’s love has its downside. Ahmed let slip his systematic quest for knowledge. His scientific methodology and his magical will were both compromised.

Ahmed found mysteries enough in being with his mistress. The rest of the world seemed gray by comparison next to the light shining from Istiphul’s face. Even that city, Isfahan, where he dwelt, that city of splendor and unmatched beauty, it grew pale and uninteresting. When Istiphul sang to him he forgot where he was.

A king may lay claim to the treasures and resources of a realm. Other than the occasional need for entertainment or diversion, he will occupy his time with securing his borders and administering his kingdom. Similarly, Ahmed occupied himself with Istiphul.

What happened then was this: rather than being the leviathan of a mental giant with a great will searching the universe, Ahmed’s will weakened. It became enough to enter the sea with his mind and to float, dream, and drift with Istiphul by his side—her body’s magnetic field caressing and illuminating his heart and soothing every nerve and fiber of his being.

Incidentally, someone like Freud might say Ahmed regressed back to the state of an infant being rocked in his mother’s arms. In truth, Ahmed did have a rather horrid childhood—what with wars, chaos, slaughter—among other things— as he grew up.

However, in the city, Ahmed was said to have lost his fiendish look as well as his joviality. He became absent-minded. Yet he had a powerful and healing magnetic touch— if you only could find him. Ahmed could heal almost any disease. And many noticed that his eyes radiated the sensation of a great depth, yet at the same time, a small but cold and burning light shone within them.

One might ask at this point whether or not this was truly a tragic tale. Istiphul only did what she does so well: she embodied the magnetic essence of water, which she offers to any who would drink from her well. It is not for her to counsel or guide those who seek her out.

Technically speaking, by the stringent regulations governing a lineage of great magicians, Ahmed lost his destiny. It had been set aside for him to become wise in all things, as a Gentile prophet.

Ahmed’s task was to present the wisdom that would guide nations, illuminate minds, and bring justice and harmony to mankind. Perhaps even the Crusades might have been abandoned had Ahmed been on the scene to negotiate a fair and equitable settlement in regard to Jerusalem. But his obsession with the sweet peace of the sea led him to lose the gift he was destined to receive.

Destiny and desire often strive with each other in a wild dance of ambition and surrender. How many sages and magicians have yet to learn that ecstasy is neither the reward nor the path but a wondrous treasure hidden in every moment and in every breath?

So, need I summarize these two stories of Donovan and Ahmed? Is there a moral? Are these tales going to scare off the faint of heart? Let me answer this way.

It has been said that every man, in his soul, knows perfect love, but he must go on a quest to find it. A few have returned having given all to this search. They tell us such love demands more than heart or mind can imagine. And yet, they also say that if you can even dream of love such as this your life will be blessed because the light in your heart will never go out. Or, as Solomon might have said, the wisdom required to fulfill this quest does not come cheap.

The Story of an Undine Possession

Fairy tales sometimes mention that an undine can take possession of a woman’s body in order to marry a man. Consider a case in Germany from the 1930s. A master of hermetic magic warned one of his students not to seek an undine as a companion, but the student ignored his advice.

According to tradition, an undine enters the body of a woman at the moment of her death and revives the body, restoring its life. She then has the departed woman’s memories and may pretend to be the woman who died. Soon after entering a body, she goes in search of the man who called her.

In this case, the man who sought the undine as a lover was very skilled in manipulating elemental energies. That was part of his magical training. He did not, however, understand the spiritual significance of water. He could open with ease the gates to the undine realm, but he understood little of the ways undines feel and perceive.

Although knowledgeable of magic, he had few social skills and some psychological problems. As a result, he felt acutely isolated and empty inside.

It was, therefore, much easier for him to find a girl friend who was an undine rather than a real woman. He found an undine that was both available and comfortable with him. In normal courting, sometimes men will put out a tremendous amount of energy and creativity in order to win a woman’s affection. As a magician, he focused an entire cycle of courting and romance into one magical command: He asked the undine to find and enter a suitable body in his area.

She had a great capacity for bonding. She could easily make a man feel like she was inside of him and part of him. To be near her was to feel an inner connection.

The undine’s inner life had the feeling of the open sea, of a strong wind during a dark night with gusts, huge waves and spray. She was wild, free, an elemental being attuned to water in its primordial power. He found her refreshing, invigorating, energizing, and reviving.

This is what happened next: An otherwise healthy young woman choked to death one night in his city. The undine immediately entered the woman’s body and brought the woman back to life, restarting her heartbeat and breathing.

Since the man and undine were in telepathic contact, he was aware that the undine had entered his world. At that moment, he felt that his life was about to change profoundly. Telepathically, he asked her to meet him in front of a nearby cathedral.

Dating is a risky business. But in this case, he already knew the undine--they had bonded. Nonetheless, meeting the undine in physical form for the first time was like meeting a woman who had just stepped out of a gate to heaven.

He got everything he wanted or could imagine in a partner and lover. The downside was that he lost interest in just about everything else in his life. His job was okay. But he lacked ambition. And he never got around to developing any social skills worth mentioning.

The society in which they lived was formal, and the gender roles were restricted. They married and had two children.

The children never suspected that their mother was a mermaid. She loved and nurtured them, perhaps more than other women. But as is possible with undines, bonding and love do not preclude detachment. For an undine, love is not so rare that one must stake a claim or define its direction in order to preserve it.

Consequently, she was not ambitious for her children. She never discussed their goals in life. That was outside of her experience.

What of the man? He had been told that under an undine’s influence, he could lose his opportunity to pursue a spiritual path. Was the master’s warning insufficient to guide the student?

When he held the undine in his arms at night, he felt the wild waves of the open ocean crashing down and rolling around and through him. With this pageantry of nature welling up from within his feelings, he was content.

Perhaps more is required than having a sacred purpose if one is to overcome the enchantments of beauty and love. In our world, happiness is so rare, its sources so hidden, that when it appears, it carries its own authority. The will of a magician often seeks to attain great goals and fulfill noble missions. But love contains mysteries that magicians have yet to imagine.

The Wonders and Dangers of Fairy Realms

Collectors of folk tales such as W. B. Yeats in Ireland or the Brother’s Grimm in Germany did not have to worry about any dangerous side effects for their readers. But they did have to worry about being accused of promoting superstition or being enamored with occult mysticism. As a consequence, they went out of their way to remain academically detached. They presented their stories as carefully recorded collections of folk tales and children’s stories that were intended to enrich language, art, and literature.

Still, if someone recounts for us a story about a nature spirit, how are we to take it? Are they making it up? Perhaps they dreamed it or, like some elderly people, confuse fact with fiction.

In his introduction to Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland, (Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1973), W.B. Yeats says that in his collection of tales he has “Tried to make it representative...of every kind of Irish folk-faith” while avoiding any kind of rational interpretation.

Yeats goes on to quote a response Socrates made in the Phadrus when asked about the tale in which “Boreas is said to have carried off Orithyia from the banks of the Ilissus....I beseech you to tell me, Socrates, do you believe this tale?”

In response, Socrates reviews the various legends relating to this story and the various interpretations. He points out that for those who believe this allegory there is the further problem of having to continue on to ponder an entire array of similar monsters that are utterly inconceivable.

Socrates then says, “Now, I have certainly not time for such inquiries. Shall I tell you why? I must first know myself, as the Delphi inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my business, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous....I want to know not about this, but about myself.”

It is ironic for Yeats to make this reference. Yeats, as also William Blake, was a registered and active member of a Druid order. In quoting Socrates on fairies, Yeats is hiding the fact that he has performed rituals that attempt to interact with these beings.

And as for Socrates, I think he was asking the wrong question. The only way to know the self is through encounters with others and with the world around us. For me, a better question is, “What is it to be fully alive?” Socrates never sat in the forest and became the rock, the tree, the stream, the wolf, and the deer in his mind. Enjoying his own eloquence and the delight of confounding others with his questions, Socrates did not explore the boundaries of sensory perception.

Humor me for a few moments and consider the possibility that undines lurk just outside of the normal range of human perception. If we gather all of our sensory experiences with lakes, rivers, and seas, we can begin to taste the awareness that undines possess. Water certainly embodies sensual release. Water invites us to let go, to flow, and to be enfolded by nurturing tenderness. Ever float on a raft down the Little Colorado and feel as if time has begun to vanish?

Ever float just at the edge of breaking waves and felt your feelings opening to the vastness of the sea? Ever float in a mountain pool and just let go into primal being as the first rays of dawn reach down into those watery depths? Have you ever experienced the clouds come down to the ground with drops of rain running down the bark of trees, poised on the tips of leaves, shivering, quivering, and then slipping into streams? In any one of these examples you may have sensed a dreamlike serenity, a thrilling wildness, and a playful exuberance.

The gate to the realm of undines opens to us precisely at this point where sensual perception and feeling amplify each other. Nature grants us a chance to step outside of our social identities. Nature revives and renews us by taking us beyond ourselves into a timeless dimension where past, present, and future intermingle revealing awe, wonder, and delight.

Moments of uninhibited sensuality and extended perception are a part of almost everyone’s experience. But undines would take us further. Every undine in this book attempts to enchant through her heightened levels of empathy, magnetic attraction, and through her mesmeric sensuality that present an entire spectrum of new ecstasies. Why should this be a problem?

In going beyond the normal modes of perception, there is always a danger of disorientation. As in some of the stories I present, no matter how talented, an individual can become obsessed and seemingly possessed—for example, experiencing exhilaration and ecstasy one moment and then depression and an acute sense of isolation after returning to one’s everyday life.

Consider, we are connecting to beings from an evolutionary path distinct from the sciences and wisdom traditions of human civilization. For example, elemental beings do not have human ethics. If you receive a gift for Christmas, you assume the giver of the gift has your best interest and well-being in mind. But a gift from an elemental being may be a gift of pure power.

I was meditating one time with a partner who said an elemental being had given her an amulet to wear—something purely of a psychic nature and not material. But she found she started hallucinating at odd times during the day when she had it on. In this case, the amulet empowered the woman to cross over to the Otherworld, to the astral plane, where the nature spirit exists.

Being pulled into the astral plane is an astonishing experience especially if it happens when you are driving your car or shopping in a store. When you enter the astral plane of elemental beings, it is like entering a dream in the mind of a creature from a different evolution. There are no references to anything pertaining to your culture or civilization.

The elemental does not worry if his or her gift is going to present you with complications or side-effects. The elemental’s intent is solely to offer you an opportunity to experience its mode of existence. A gift of power is given out of respect. And no matter how beautiful or loving an undine may be, in their realm all interaction is based on power. Attraction and love are expressions of the magnetic properties of water and with this magnetism they are grand masters.

Second, the elemental beings I describe are well-acquainted with human beings. I am not the first person to talk to them. Some of the elementals in this book have formed extremely close ties with magicians. They have become companions and learned from each other. For some individuals, this has been beneficial and for others the connection to the fairy realm has been their undoing.

Some of the undines also claim to guard treasures of spirit and hidden destinies that world teachers have not yet revealed to mankind. Some elementals have incarnated as human beings. Even in the twentieth century, there are reports of this happening. This usually occurs because the elemental has temporarily taken a human lover.

When I write about elementals they may discuss with me their relations with mages, poets, and sages from historical and forgotten civilizations. When it comes to cultural myths and legends, it is sometimes difficult to trace the sources of the stories handed down through the generations. It may be that a poet or bard can not help but embellish and add entirely new chapters to ancient sagas in order to convey a message to his own time. It is probably wise, then, to take with a grain of salt the stories elementals tell. The astral plane is perhaps even more prone to exaggeration and to the excesses of imagination than is our own world.

Keep in mind, elemental beings are invisible except to clairvoyants. They do not eat food or drink water as do we—the energy sustaining them is altogether different. And they are not subject to human morality—they have existed for eons before human religions began.

When these elemental beings think, they do not use the lexical items in our dictionaries—neither the sounds nor the units of meaning they use relate to the Indo-European or any other human language. When a “thought” is placed into your mind by an elemental, it is your experience that becomes the vehicle for translating that thought into something familiar that you understand. If you rush to label your sensory perceptions or take for granted your connection to elementals, you lose the depth and the beauty of what is being shared.

And though the life span of elementals is a matter of speculation, it is fair to say that many live for countless ages and some have been around for millions of years. And so, when you enter the domain of elemental beings, you have to create your own reference points. Science, history, culture and the works of mankind—these beings do not need any of this in order to flourish or to practice their arts.

A relationship with another person often takes a lot of work. Working with elemental beings also takes effort, patience, and contemplation if you are going to get anything out of it. As in any kind of relationship, there are times when you have to put aside your expectations if you are going to hear what is being said or make the most of the opportunities that arise.

Once you form a connection an undine can show up unexpectedly, obtrusively, and without being called. These are the Queens and the masters of their element. Unless you possess a mastery of the water element equal to their own, they can follow their own rules. The rituals and authority in human spiritual traditions are no more than a curiosity and minor hurdle for them to leap over.

They do not speak in human language. Instead, their communication is body to body, feelings to feelings, and mental imagery to mental imagery. This is intimate and at times absolutely overpowering. Some of your experiences with these beings will be outside of anything described in human literature by any mystic, poet, or philosopher. The undines act according to principles of psychology that the human race will not discover for hundreds of years.

Through extended interaction you can begin to see as they see, feel as they feel, and engage the natural world from their perspective. But your new perceptions are, nonetheless, outside the normal operating range of other human beings. It takes a huge effort to make sense of what you experience and it is even more difficult to share your experiences with others.

And unless you immediately write down what you experience with an undine everything that happened may vanish from your mind within five minutes. Why? You have two hundred thousand years of neurological programming that makes you a human being. Undines have millions of years of uniting with nature. Joining these two perspectives and ways of being may not be as easy as it seems.

All the same, a reader might ask, What is the point of this? What is the purpose?

What is not taught in our civilization is the essence of the feminine—the accepting grace, the healing power, and the all-embracing love within magnetic and attractive energy. The magnetic fluid, the essence of the feminine, embodies a pure receptivity that is empty of all ego. Its unique power is in its ability to contain within itself the soul of any being so as to shelter, transform, inspire, and to make something completely new. This feminine power has no limitation or restriction placed upon it.

This energy that exists within nature and which undines have mastered can be reproduced within us. This energy is cool, contracting, soothing, and attractive. It is nurturing and supportive. It shelters and protects. Instead of intense, commanding, and explosive as is masculinity, it is rhythmic, receptive, and gentle.

In psychological terms, it is empathic, sensitive and responsive. It draws together, bonds, joins, and unites. It accepts and affirms. In spiritual terms, it reaches towards an all-encompassing, all-embracing love.

If our society had the undines’ knowledge, our empathy would be vastly expanded. Inner kingdoms of feeling would be revealed. Our receptivity and sensitivity to impressions and our intuitive abilities would be exponentially increased.

In practical terms, this would mean we would have the ability to understand why others feel as they do—anyone anywhere on earth. We would be able to perceive and also to interact with their souls directly from within. Love, then, would not just be a moral imperative or a theological ideal. It would not just be an attraction that makes you feel good or bonds you with another. Love would be the power to hold and to contain anyone’s else’s life, soul, or will within our hearts so as to heal, bring to completion, and transform from within.

We all know about weapons of war. Love, however, creates peace. It is greater than the desire to control, to dominate, or to destroy. It is more powerful. This is because the empathy I describe is more accurate, precise, and penetrating with awareness than any form of knowledge we currently possess.

If you can understand others from within, then you can understand what motivates them, what drives them, what instincts are active, and every aspect of the power they hold in their hands. No general, dictator, warlord, politician, intelligence organization, corporation, or military industrial complex would be safe if it wished to abuse its power.

In the final analysis, it is love that takes responsibility for the world. It is love that is qualified to oversee the unfolding of history. It is love that has the power and authority to establish justice. It is love that sees the future. And it is love that offers us our greatest chance to be fully alive and to discover the best that life holds.

As I state in the dialogues, beings such as the queens of the undines have been created and imbued with wisdom and beauty commensurate with the destiny the human race is meant to achieve. Their knowledge awaits our discovery. They are an opportunity waiting to be seized.

As one undine queen said to me, “All that I am in my being you have the power to create in yourself as well.” Whether we choose to learn from their love or not, it is our destiny as a race to embody their abilities within us. I have journeyed into the realm of the undines in order to share their treasures with others.

Summary

Questions on the Stories. The three stories above each present certain difficulties or unforeseen consequences from contacting the realm of undines. You can review those problems if you like.

When people make choices involving unknown variables, the consequences can be staggering. But this has always been the nature of human experience. We can at least learn from others’ choices.

What is perhaps more important is to imagine the kind of contact we might like with the realm of undines or the undine queens. In a sense, it is not necessary to contact these being. One need not even believe in them.

It is their qualities and powers that we can discover within us. Whether the mermaids and undines are creatures of imagination, of nature, or pure magic, we all have an inner undine or merman within us. The skills of these beings are teachable. They are needed by our civilization to restore balance and harmony with nature and also among ourselves.

The question to ask, then, is: Can you imagine what life would be like if there were more individuals who possessed the powers and qualities of the undines?

Speaking for myself, I would like such a world. For within it I could meet others who sense my deepest desires, needs, and dreams. With ease they could hold all that I am within their hearts. They would know how to inspire and encourage. They would know how to touch and to heal. And, in an instant, when you think about them, they would sense your presence and surround you with love, for their very being and essence is love.

I dream of such a world.