Mermaid Musings

When my granddaughters were younger they loved mermaids and had mermaid dolls and mermaid tail blankets and at night I would read them mermaid stories. Now they have outgrown the mermaid phase, but I still connect with mermaid tales and legends. So this month I would like to share some of my favorite mermaid musings with you.

Legend says that mermaids created the ocean gemstone, the aquamarine, when, as they cried over the sailors who were innocently killed in the ocean, their tears of empathy turned into the precious gem, aquamarine, as they fell upon the ocean surface.

What have you cried over?

Are your tears ones of Compassion? Joy? Healing? Sorrow? Happiness? Release?

Sometimes we cry from seeing true courage, inspiration shown by others that touches our hearts so deeply.

Sometimes we cry from empathy, sometimes we cry from acceptance and sometimes we cry from frustration and fear.

As women we were often shamed for our tears. Mermaids invite us to get to know our tears and not be ashamed or embarrassed by them, since they are not just our tears, they are god’s tears too, since god and we are one.

What have your tears created?

Are they tears that can calm, soothe and cleanse?

Are they tears that connect with others, express love?

Do your tears leave behind something that can make the world a more loving place?

Many representations of mermaids show them combing their hair. Hair has traditionally represented strength so the mermaids act of reverently attending to her long lustrous hair signifies her efforts to nurture and enhance her personal power.

Ah. Personal power

Growing up I was taught I did not have any personal power and so instead of learning to nurture and enhance personal power, I learned and perfected the art of manipulation.

I found it safer and more effective to flatter, beg, people please and play helpless. I learned to sneak, steal, lie and pretend, all the while looking like I was the good girl playing by the rules.

Then in my addiction, I gravitated to quick and easy and dishonest ways of pretending I had personal power.

Finally, in recovery, the steps challenged me to look at those methods of getting power and ask myself if that was really power or just more disease and dysfunction.

The problem then became I didn’t have a clue as to what real power was.

Are you good with people? That’s personal power.

Are you honestly aware of your surroundings and speak up about them? Are you willing to act?

Are you smart…talented…strong?

Do you listen to your soul? Do you listen to others?

Do you empower others?

These are our personal powers.

There is a beautiful form of feminine power in each one of us.

It comes from deep within, from a quiet sense of knowing that arises when we are serene, sober and resting in the arms of our creator.

What is keeping you from experiencing that beautiful feminine power today?

In my disease I was always battling with something inside me as well as outside me.

Today I am learning my true power is not OVER someone or something, but is instead, power WITH. Power with my God.

It is power TO. Power with my God to carry out his will.

In disease and dysfunction, power was keeping what I had.

In recovery power is not meant to be hoarded, but to be shared so that it can grow beyond our wildest dreams.

Are you holding on to some old form of power, afraid of losing what you have, or are you sharing your power and growing beyond your past?

There are many stories about mermaid power and what it can do. In legends, mermaids had the power to seduce and destroy people who had hurt them.

Today we know that is not power at all! It is abuse of power.

Many of us have suffered under that abuse of power and we read about it everyday in the news.

Despite what has been done to women, collectively and individually, we still have a power that no amount of abuse can rob us of. What is the name of that power in you?

Might it be the power of your: words, your choices, your love,

your forgiveness, your leadership, your charity, your support,

your understanding, your letting go?

Where will you use those powers?

It is said that a mermaids voice is so beautiful that it can mesmerize and hypnotize those who hear it.

What is your voice like? Strong, weak, sad, angry, kind, joyful, abusive, committed, confused?

Is it yours or someone elses?

Our human voice is a natural and powerful tool for self expression and connection, and we are responsible for the vibrations that go out from that voice.

I am not responsible for how others might interpret my voice, only for how I deliver it.

Madeline Albright said “It took me a long time to develop a voice and now that I have it, I’m not going to be silent”

Where do you need to use your voice?

A mermaids kiss is pretty magical. It has been said that a kiss from a mermaid gives the receiver the ability to breathe underwater temporarily until they are safe.

My 9 year old grandaughter gives mouth kisses. Messy, strong and from the heart. When she gives me the “I love you grammy kiss” she gives me the ability to see myself less negatively.

When I give her a kiss because she is sad, tired or mad, I give her the ability to calm down. Do your kisses give others the ability to breathe under the water of the thing they think they just can’t do?

Is your kiss a perfunctory peck on the cheek or a heartfelt transfer of love and generosity. And remember some kisses are not given with our lips, they are given with our hearts!

The ability to temporarily breathe underwater! The acronym for kiss, (keep it serenely simple) is a good reminder for breathing underwater. Humans cannot breathe underwater. We know that, so I am suggesting that we use the word underwater to symbolize what we see as impossible to do.

Mermaid legends give the receiver of the kiss ability to breathe underwater only temporarily.

Sometimes, (hopefully not too often) in life we are given the challenge of doing something we thought was impossible and God temporarily gives us the ability to breathe through it with the kiss of his grace.

What is your impossible task, thing, situation that you have been drowning in?

The water you might need to learn to breathe in might be;

stress, expectations, fear, the unknown, pain, anger, loss.

Whatever it is, remember the rules of water:

Know your water, take someone along and never swim alone.

What is the water you have been given the opportunity to breathe in, and who can help you keep it serenely simple?

Mermaids tails change colors. The tail is unique to every mermaid and depicts her personality and her feelings at any given moment. Her tail is not an attempt to copy the trend or fit in, it is uniquely hers and as she changes interiorly her tail changes exteriorly.

Do you hide your true colors, under a layer of what others think is acceptable for you?

Does your color come from inside you or from the expectations of others? Does your outside reflect your inside? When I am hurt, I am really scared of that vulnerability, so I hide it under anger. Sometimes when I’m angry, I am really scared of that anger so I hide it under a smile that says it’s OK.

In both instances I am in my disease to please.

No wonder I can feel misunderstood or on the outside of my life! I’m creating that!

Light comes from truth. If there is no truth in my life, there is no light to bring out my colors

Our beautiful colors show when the light of our HP reflects out from our inner serenity, our inner truth, not our inner insecurity.

Can you find serenity in your insecurity by giving it to HP?

Our beautiful colors show when his grace shines upon us and brightens our word as well as when it shines from within us to brighten our world.

Our beautiful colors show when we are willing to move and trust in his presence, in his light.

Sometimes it just takes a slight shift in position to see our colors sparkle in his light.

Sometimes it just takes a slight shift in thinking from depressed to blessed, from grumbling to grateful for our light to shine.

Where have your colors been dulled by your thinking?

Where is your outside not in line with your inside?

Where do you need to make a slight shift in position?

In mermaid symbolism, mermaids believe the planet earth is surrounded by a magnetic field filled with the quality of “love that is everywhere every moment”

Can you imagine how different our emotional reactions might be if we believed that also?

Not that we wouldn’t have emotions. We would, but instead of poisoning the atmosphere around us with those emotions we would unite them to THE LOVE that is everywhere every moment

Will you believe love surrounds you even when you can’t see or feel it?

Mermaids also perceive the world as being richly satisfying and fulfilling but it is not based on the extent to which their personal needs are being satisfied. They are not greedy. They are not power hungry, because they intuitively experience themselves as already part of the richness of life.

They experience the abundant energy of life flowing through them.

Mermaids remind us of a wondrous part of ourselves that we can only discover if we like the mermaid are willing to plunge deep down, through the surface of life to the depth of our connection with our creator.

The mermaid plumbs the oceans depths, a symbol of the unconscious, and brings up to the surface, the treasure she finds there at the bottom.

Ah treasure! But does it have to be at the bottom?

For a lot of my life I believed at the bottom of me, the depths of me was garbage, darkness and disgust so staying on the surface was survival

I’d love to say that today I am no longer a surface person, and

that I am like a magnificent mermaid facing my challenges, conquering my fears, admitting my insecurities and diving deeper.

I’m not quite there yet, but I am beginning. Beginning to listen to the call to dive deeper.

The depths the mermaid dives into is not simply the ocean floor

She dives into the very essence of her being.

For a mermaid that essence is water.

For you and me I believe it’s God’s grace.

Where is God asking you to dive deeper?

Grace is the ever flowing energy of God’s pure love. It is the water we can choose to live in as well as the water that runs through our bodies.

We were born with a grace filled soul and we are surrounded by grace every moment of our lives.

But we need to let go of our self will, our doubt, our fear.

We need to be willing to dive deep into the depths of grace.

Do you believe that you are grace? That you are the feminine spirit of God alive in your body and therefore you are not junk?

Do you live in grace, seeing God’s presence in everything?

Do you believe your every breath is an extension of Gods powerful love for and belief in you?

Do you know how to let go and follow the flow of grace?

Do you accept that life involves a continual choice to exchange the energy of grace with others?

The mermaid invites and challenges us to live from our depths.

The mermaid challenges us to listen to our rhythms and

to see our life for the fathomless mystery that it is. She invites us to follow our passions and live from our soul.

When we don’t follow our souls lead, our passions become dulled and turn into depression, frustration and anger. Passion gone astray and left unexpressed is what eventually creates bitter empty old women.

Now I might be old, but bitter is not what I want to be.

Funny how you don’t see pictures of old mermaids? Maybe that’s because they are no longer floating on the surface of their lives, but rather living deep in the depths of their souls.

.CS Lewis said:

“Don’t let the waves of others drown out your ocean song

Hold your heart as though it is a seashell

And listen to its music

To the whispers of your ocean within

Swim to your own ocean song.”

May you spend this summer month swimming in the water of God’s love.