Copyright © 2009 by William R. Mistele.  All rights reserved.

 

                               Week Four: Ocean of Love Exercise

 

Chapter Objectives

 

Develop 1. A meditation on the ocean

               2. Convert the sensations and feelings of the ocean

                   into the sensations and feelings of an ocean of love

3.      Consider an undine queen’s perspective on humanity  

     

Chapter Outline

 

Ocean Meditation  

 

Toward the Realm of Undines

 

Transcript, video/audio: The Goddess, the Merman, and the Cup

 

http://williammistele.com/cup3.wmv

 

Introduction to the Undine Queen Istiphul

 

Channeling Istiphul

 

The Ocean of Love Exercise

 

Summary: Istiphul Poem

 

 

Introduction

 

In my essay, Ten Rules for Spiritual Beginner (http://williammistele.com/tenrules.html), I mention under rule eight: Learn to think both sides of any position.  And also, learn to observe without thoughts intervening, for this is the foundation of all magical traditions. 

   In this chapter, we walk right up to the gate of the realm of undines and peer inside.  And then we step though and look back at humanity from the realm of undines.   We are going to think from both sides.  And we are going to observe relying on intuition and feeling rather than thoughts and thinking. 

   This all sounds very dramatic but it is also very simple.  We are just developing a direct experience with love that should have been taught to us long ago.  As I mention in the last chapter, with this exercise we are catching up and filling in for what has been missing from human experience for many long ages and eons.  

   

 

The Ocean: A Meditation on the Sea (from the undine Istiphul)

 

Follow Istiphul and me as we join our minds.  We are sitting on the sand with our feet in the water on Sandy Beach, Oahu.  Imagine the sea--blue-green waves stretching from continental shores to continental shores.  Look at the waves in front of you.  Look at the waves as they spread out to the horizon and envision the vast expanse beyond as they circle the earth.  Consider the winds that drive them and the tides rising and falling.

     To the north, feel the icy pole of the world.  Consider the wilderness where snow falls for a half of a year in darkness.  Gaze upon white cliffs of ice and the icebergs to which they give birth.  See and feel them drift to the south.  And, toward the equator, feel the warmth of the moist trade winds.  Visualize the archipelagoes and the island chains.  Sense the ease with which clouds form from the seas and the hurricanes are fashioned from the warm air rising.

     Visualize also the shores of islands as they gradually or rapidly drop down to the ocean floor.  Send your mind into these depths.  Among the deepest trenches of the sea are lost ships, volcanoes, and darkness, but you are able to move here without difficulty.

     The trick in a meditation such as this is to become what you are contemplating.  Become the primordial sea.  This is the first step--feel the sea’s heartbeat, its breath, its currents, its tides, and the myriad forms of life dwelling within it. 

     The ocean, though vast and mysterious, is also the dream of being accepted--of being able to relax, to let go, and to flow in a place too great for the mind to imagine.  Wave after wave of sensual caresses, with rhythm and passion, renew, heal, and yield to us the taste of beauty and freedom.   

 

                                               

                                              Toward the Realm of the Undines

 

It is possible to talk about how individuals might gradually acquire an awareness of the realm of undines.  But before considering this, let us examine our relationship to the other three elements of earth, air, and fire with their realms of gnomes, sylphs, and salamanders. 

 

Earth: If we wanted a sense of being inside of the realm of gnomes, the earth elementals, we could study geology.  We could hunt down rocks and listen to their stories of ages past.  Geologists have fastidiously been tracking how the dinosaurs died, when and where asteroids hit the earth, where minerals are hidden and how were they formed. 

   We have filled in the periodic table, make diamonds and hair thin wafers of silicon for imprinting information for computers.  And then we have studies of forests and plants.  We make better plants and crops and we rewrite DNA.  

  We are already deep inside the realm of gnomes.  We have different methods than they do but we sometimes think the same thoughts with the same goals.

 

Air:  Sylphs.  We share much in common.  We have weather reports on storms as they move across continents.  The weatherman could easily be a sylph in disguise: “Now as this low moves across Oklahoma and Kansas, we will need to watch out for the moist, warmer air coming up from the gulf.  Though the jet stream moved north this year, there remains a high possibility of tornadoes at these two fronts intersect. Let’s take a look now at the Doppler radar showing turbulent air ready to form tornadoes.”

   A sylph would enjoy being a human being in disguise on occasion just to give his own personal version of the weather report.  

   And then we study the global weather with satellites, measure the melting of glaciers, the health of reefs around the world, and study the climates from other ages.  We are solidly inside of the realm of sylphs.

 

Salamanders:  In some ways, the salamanders are ready to study with us.  Somehow in the last few hundred years, humanity went crazy with its fascination with fire and electricity.  How to make things explode: we love researching that.  How do volcanoes go off?

  We actually have volcanologists who have stated their desire to get in a metal canoe and paddle down a lava flow.  How crazy is that?  Not to mention climbing out of a helicopter to dip a can into hot lava to take samples when the volcano could erupt at any moment.  

   It is about enthusiasm, interest, passion, and a desire to get inside the element—to know all there is to know about it.  

 

If we take fire as will, there is always someone in any century trying to use his will to take control of the world.  Fire as will has always been with us. 

  If we take air as intellect and mind, we have scientists like Steven Hawkin who say that the purpose of science is to understand everything there is to know about the universe.  We have been very big on scientific knowledge for the last few hundred years.  And Buddhism at least has been pursuing the enlightened mind, so that other side of mind—its open clarity—has been an object of study for thousands of years.

  If we consider earth as consciousness, building things and making things and working to produce things that endure, we have been very big on the earth element for thousands of years also. 

 

But what about water?  We have oceanography. We explore the bottom of the sea, name the fish, study their habitants, the ocean currents, the tides, etc.  We know from fossils of fish that lived hundreds of millions of years ago.  We can reconstruct and run simulations on how the ocean was formed.

   Does this not give us entry to the realm of undines in a way that is similar to how we have virtual embassies in the other three realms?

  Here is the difference: if we take water as feeling, we as human beings are still locked inside of our skins.  We have no embassy in the realm of undines. 

  Undines, unlike gnomes, sylphs, and salamanders, do not come around, observe us, and think, “Oh, you are doing the same sort of thing that I do with your interest in oceanography, the history of the sea, and with your study of water and magnetism.”

  The undines feel no real connection to humanity.  To put it bluntly, from the point of view of undines the human race has not awakened to the beauty of this planet.  We are part dead, almost like zombies when it comes to feeling.  How so?

  An undine can sense immediately what another undine is feeling.  It can do the same with any life form including human beings.  From the point of view of an undine, a human being is weighed down by the world; human beings are enslaved to their material possessions; feelings appear to be unwelcome; sensory delight is almost a burden;

  Though human purposes are well-defined, the mind is strong, and the commitment to work and to build are at times amazing, the human soul and heart are like an animal trapped in a cage.  Fear, hunger, and craving are boiling and seething just beneath the surface of consciousness waiting to explode with violence and rage in any moment.

   You can pick up a rock and make it into a brick, a statute, a fence, part of an oven, a staircase, etc.  You can make a fire and cook a meal, boil water, refine iron to steel, or send a spacecraft to the moon.  You can breathe air and use its vibration to sing, to speak, to communicate, and in so doing to convey a precise idea from one mind to another mind.

  But put your hand in water and what happens? You can use the water to wash yourself, cleanse a wound, drink, water plants and fields. 

   But when an undine puts her hand in water she feels the entire sea and the life within it.  She has visions of past, present, and future.  She has the power to take a feeling, a dream, or a vision and amplify it so that it appears before her in its full power and perfection. 

   When an undine puts her hand in water, if she relaxes and lets go, she feels united to a sea of ecstasy.  This is the difference. 

  Some great curse or bioengineering mistake has been mankind’s fate that we have as yet not learned how to feel these things. 

 

The realm of undines, then, is hidden from our consciousness.  It is like it does not exist.  We have a few stories about mermaids.  But these stories barely hint at what I have described.  The stories are on par with Santa Claus—they are fun up to a certain age and then we put them aside, no matter how much we may have enjoyed their wonder when we were young.

   To make it simple, let me break it down into three steps: the movement from where we are to entering the gate of this magical realm.

 

First step

 

The first step occurs when we experience a delight of pure sensuality so enchanting the ego is overcome and we completely let go into feeling and sensation.  This occurs, for example, when rafting down a river such as the Little Colorado.  There is no sign of civilization.  Time is measured in the rock formations of cliffs stretching back through geological ages.  The river has flowed for millions of years and you are part of that flow.  Your social identity is still real, but it is on hold, like a shirt or a coat you hang up in the closet when you come home.

  Here, drifting, floating, flowing, you can just let go.  It is a set of sensations—and the entire environment is arranged to amplify your feelings.  

   Or, who has not as a kid jumped into a puddle or when older went for a walk knowing you would become soaking wet in the rain?  Here again the sensations take over.  In a sense, the rain makes you part of the cloud which reaches down to the earth.  Thoughts are secondary to the experience.  The experiences and feelings vary, but hidden within them is the awareness that the body and nature are not separate. 

   How about floating in a lake at night?  The water as we learned in the last chapter can amplify feelings.  If you feel fear, you can imagine drowning.  If you feel relaxed, the entire lake spreads out around you relaxed and at peace.  If you try for serenity, your body, the lake, and the night sky of stars begin to blend, flowing in and through each other like a dream that has no end.

   You can reflect upon your own experiences with water.  But this is the first step toward the gate into the realm of undines. 

   You will know that you are at this point when you can relax, close your eyes, and imagine some scene from nature.  And then you feel that the energies of nature are flowing through your body, extending and amplifying your sensual delight and the feeling of being alive.

 

Second Step

 

The second step in moving toward the gate of the realm of undines is to embody in some way the experiences of the first step.  Sensual delight and the feeling of release may come and go.  But these things can increase until they become a permanent presence inside of us.   

  These things can be found in works of art.  Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or the Ninth Symphony with its Ode to Joy; in Van Gogh’s Starry Night; in songs such as in Silent Night’s, “all is calm, all is bright,” or “Oh beautiful, for spacious skies ….”

    They can be found in a negotiator who places himself amid conflict because he loves resolving conflicts.  He loves the act of creating peace.  It can be found in a relationship where there is “a secret sharing heart to heart” with a happiness or peace like a pool of still water in a cave beneath a mountain or flowing hidden and quiet like an underground stream.    

    The inner feeling within oneself reaches a level of strength in which it is no longer dependent on the events of the external world to nurture and to sustain it. 

   I sometimes meet individuals who have a sense of well-being that has reached this level.  Their inner feeling of peace shapes their lives.  Past, present, and future flow together and are joined.  The events of the outer world do not interfere with the feeling of being whole and complete that already exists inside of them. 

   Their identities are not shaped by their relationships, by their careers, or the social roles they assume.  They use their role in society as a way to express themselves always sensing that who they are and what they feel inside is forever independent and free of these outer activities. 

   You will know when you have reached this place, this second step toward the undine gate in this way.  If you sit still and relax, you will be able to sense in some way that is effortless and spontaneous that you are joined to nature from inside your self.

    In some practices, the individual imagines walking through woods or down a path until he or she comes to a clearing, a grove of trees, or a stone circle.  But in this step you are the grove or the stone circle, a lake, a waterfall, a sea, the moon, the stars above, the rain falling, etc.  The vibration of nature in some way is in and a part of you.  It is there in a permanent way.

 

Third Step

 

In the third step, you see the light from the realm of undines shining through the “gate” leading to that realm.  You are witness to the existence of another spiritual world.  When you see and experience this, you are standing free of human history and civilization. 

  This is called transcendence.  You are outside of time.  The   human world is still present, but you view it from a completely different perspective. 

   Great writers sometimes have a feel for this.  They focus on the most difficult situations in life.  They study and concentrate on every little detail.  They want to understand why people hold on with such strength to the images with which they identify themselves. 

   The writer sees the individual’s self-image as a reflection in a mirror.  It appears briefly shaped and illuminated by circumstances as arbitrary and malleable as a dream.  But people do not realize that. They cling to these images as if without them nothing else would exist.  They do not realize that they can cast them off and becomes something completely different—with different feelings, thoughts, and actions. 

   So the writer takes his observations and makes it into a play, a drama, a movie, or a poem.  He tells a story and says, “Look, see what I see—human beings make choices based on these influences.  But they forget that they are the ones choosing which influences to accept and which to reject.” 

   In the third step, when you look out your window at bright snow lit by the full moon, you may see “radiant beams from God’s holy face.” Or you may see shining “an inner peace with the universe that the Church has never known.”

   You may actually want to go out and dance naked in the snow.  Wild deer may walk up to you and lie down next to you and fall asleep.  When the entire world is wrong, you can still feel an inner peace and joy welling up from inside of you in spite of the destruction caused by human beings.   

  You sit down with a Hindu, Chinese, American Indian, or Tibetan masters.  When they look at you, they see some deep longing inside of themselves already embodied within you.  You are not the product of a human spiritual tradition.  Something from the Otherside, the Next World, is shining and alive inside of you.    

   You will know when you reach this third step because there are moments when you feel outside of time, looking at the human world with the light of another realm.

   And you also feel a sense of wonder touching you.  It conveys to you this message: you are meant to take the person you are and recreate it into something new, from a dream or vision you find in your heart. 

  The light from the realm of undines conveys this message: the universe exists to fulfill the purposes of love.  When you feel that energy you feel that the part of your self that was missing is now restored.  


The Gate to the Realm of Undines

 

How do you know when you have made it to the gate?  Easy.  Undines appear right next to you.  You share in common with them the way they feel and perceive.  They accept you because you have their vibration. 

   You can communicate mind to mind with thoughts.  But the connection is more a matter of embodying a watery vibration.  Let’s do a test.

   Take a few minutes and slowly move with your awareness through different images of water in nature.  Become mountain stream, a waterfall, and a pool.  Become a lake, a river, and the sea.  Become an iceberg frozen in an arctic bay or a small bay in an island in the tropics.  Drop your mind down into an ocean trench, become the sea.   

   Notice the different vibration produced in your body as you identify with each of these ways in which water appears in nature.  If you meet or imagine an undine next to you, match her vibration.  Let her energy flow in and define what you feel inside of you.  Learn from the other.  Extend your senses and feelings though the way the other perceives and feels. 

   Long ago when I first met women with a profound sense of well-being inside of them, it took me decades to learn to produce those feelings inside of myself.  But now I go to the source of such feelings as they derive from the energies underlying nature and as they exist within the astral plane.  We are meant to learn from each other.  We are meant to flow in and through and give birth to each other from the gifts we give and from the life we share.                      

 

 

 

                             The Goddess, the Merman, and the Cup  

 

Try the following meditation, either by reading or by following the words as you play the video.  (It may help to close all programs and reboot your computer if you have a limited ram memory; I’ll get his up on youtube soon).

 

For the video, see     http://williammistele.com/cup3.wmv

 

The Goddess of the Earth (to a young woman): Do you wish to be anointed with my beauty and shine with my light?

 

Woman: Yes

 

Goddess: Then two things I require—establish justice upon the earth and do as I do: make the world new.

 

Woman: How do I do this?

 

Goddess: Establish a religion without priests, temples, or rituals in which love, power, wisdom, and justice are equally honored and pursued.

 

Woman: (I am about to ask Her how, but now a merman touches my hand, probing my heart and penetrating my thoughts.)

 

Merman: It is my skill to reveal the keys to the mysteries of the lakes, the rivers, the streams, and the seas. 

 

There is a peace as vast as the sky, as deep as the sea, as still and clear as a mirror, and flowing like water.   

 

Woman: Can you help me find this peace within myself? 

 

Merman: Yes, of course.  

 

Take this cup into your hands.  Now relax, be still.   

 

Feel my hands on your own as we hold the cup.  Take a deep breath.  Exhale. 

 

Now feel you are this cup and this water.  Nothing else is in your mind.  You are free of all distractions.  Take your time.  Feel this cool water inside of you.  

 

The water—this water is now you. 

 

The water vibrates with all the water upon our planet.  This water is calm, serene, still, relaxed, and at peace.  The very depths of the sea are within you.  

 

The flowing streams, the rivers, the icy poles, the waves of all the seas, they are all flowing through and within and are a part of you. 

 

The circle of the earth, the vast expanse of ocean from horizon to and over horizon around the globe: you are this vast body of water and this water is within your soul.

 

See how the water like a mirror reflects clearly all that is near.  Sense that this reflective power of water is your own. The light it reflects sinks into your depths.  The pure essence of the sun, the moon, and the stars is captured in the taste of this substance you hold.  

 

Open your heart.  Feel moonlight flowing down upon you, anointing you.   Open yourself. 

 

Feel the light of dawn and sunset, the birth of light on earth, its spectrum of wonder and color, this light is flowing through you—soft, shining, luminous, cool, soothing, full of dreams and visions. 

 

It guides us in our sleep and it joins us to all that we can ever want.

 

Gaze again upon this cup.  Water is so open and reflective, so deep and at peace, it contains all the feelings of every heart within itself.  It holds the mystery of our opposite--the universe moves around the mysteries of the heart. 

 

Past, present, future—they are all contained and revealed in this moment of pure stillness.  Feel that this water is the purity of your love and that your love embraces the whole world. 

 

In this cup are my love and your love also.  In this cup, the separations of space and time are overcome.  Here is the feeling of what it is like to finally come home. 

 

Within this cup and this water is a love that flows without beginning or end.  The universe has been created with its stars and galaxies to give us a taste of the delight that is hidden within such life. 

 

Within the depths of water, its liquid embrace, is the fulfillment of every desire—the stars and the sky above us, the depths of the sea, and the stillness in this moment are within your own heart.

 

Take this cup now and drink from it--drink into yourself the love that embraces the universe and that makes us all one with each other without separation ….taste the water in your mouth; go with it as it sinks down; stay with it as it is absorbed into every cell in your body.

 

The waters of life flow through you.  The beauty of the universe is within and a part of you.

 

And now do you have what you asked me for?  A peace as deep as the sea, as vast as the sky, as still and clear as a mirror, and flowing like water? 

 

Woman: (I stare into his eyes for several minutes without speaking.)

 

Can you sit with me for a while?  I want to be able to share this beauty with another without speaking.

 

Merman: Of course.

 

 

                                 Introduction to the Undine Queen Istiphul

 

Franz Bardon’s description of Istiphul is short.  He mentions that she teaches how to see the past, present, and future though using water.  Also, how to create and to diminish love.  And that she is a master of erotic arts and can often bind unwary magicians by her beauty.

   But there is a problem with this and other spirits Bardon describes.  He does not put the spirits in context.  He does not provide a global perspective encompassing culture, religion, and historical civilizations.  Consequently, it is very easy to miss the significance of these spirits. 

   I sometimes mention that if you change your self you change the world.  The primary purpose of interacting with spirits is to learn from them—to embody their qualities and powers. 

   I imagine that if one person were to do this with Istiphul, that is, embody her qualities and powers, then the course of human history would be changed.  And so this introduction to the undine queen Istiphul: 

 

There was an ancient king known as Solomon who sat on an ivory throne.  He was known throughout the world for his immense wealth and profound wisdom.  And Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.      

     But Solomon’s women were not as beautiful nor did they bear such treasures of spirit from distant lands as those with whom I meditate.  You may decide for yourself as to who has been more inspired by the opposite gender, or who greets with greater welcome the mystery of love—the king when he wrote The Song of Solomon or I when I dialogue with the queen of the undines.

     Have you heard this tale or even one song of Istiphul, the Queen of the undines?  No?  Then let us begin!  Istiphul is perhaps the most beautiful creature on this planet.  If it were possible, her beauty would rival what sages and poets describe as the goddess Dawn spoken of in Hindu mythology—the first feminine form born of Creation.  Istiphul is that spirit of the sea whose touch more than bliss bestows and whose eyes know secrets no sailor on earth will ever discover by sailing the seven seas.

     In the past, bards neither sang of Istiphul nor mentioned her name aloud—mankind was deemed too weak to endure such beauty.  But my voice is not bound by the laws governing former bards.  And where they would have kept Istiphul for themselves, I am more generous: I speak aloud and offer my songs to the entire world.

     How did I happen to meet such a creature of wonder, so hidden and unknown?  Whenever I gaze at the sea, I feel her presence.  Her fragrance is in the wind, her voice is in the sound of the breaking waves.  Her touch is in the spray and drops of water running down my skin. 

     To speak with her, to call her forth, is just a matter of opening your senses to the presence of the sea and following your feelings back to their source.  But this is not to say that such an encounter is without risk.  When I first spoke with Istiphul decades ago, I entered that place of soul some of us know well but can not define—in quiet moments an uninvited feeling may accost us—an indescribable sadness fall upon us.

   This sadness is perhaps an echo, a reverberation from feeling separated, but we do not know precisely from what.  And the instant I saw Istiphul I said to myself—

 

I will never meet a woman who is this beautiful.

 

This thought was like a lightning bolt hurled through an empty void within my soul, a void her face had just revealed.  It spoke of an unnamed loss—a tension with no release.      

     And though many others would have fled, thinking this knowledge too forbidden to behold, I stayed and faced it. Emptiness gripped my soul, and I tasted every bit of the sorrow that lingers in us from being so distant from nature.

     But looking back two decades later, I think I was wrong about the beauty of women compared to the pure enchantment concealed within nature—for one of Life’s greatest secrets is that she is full of surprises. 

     And though I have kept Istiphul’s existence secret for many years, I am now free to sing of her beauty—so that mankind might be informed of the power of love hidden within the depths of the sea.

     Ah, Istiphul!  She is the essence of feminine companionship.  When I first touched her aura with my hand, I realized I had just met a woman who could and would willingly create out of her inner being and femininity, the perfect counterpart to all of my desires.  She even perceives unknown needs I have not yet discovered within myself.

     My dreams, what I have sought, what I have lost—she comes weaving a spell of love that harmonizes all that I am.  The deepest place within me that I can not find—she lives there already, shining with beauty that radiates and flows freely throughout my soul.

     But Istiphul is not a fantasy.  And it is not that she molds her identity to fit my imagination.  She does not behave like many mortal women who out of insecurity create something fake to please their mate, surrendering their own will and life in the bargain, as collateral. 

     Rather, she is a master of what magicians call the magnetic fluid: the feminine counterpart to the electric, masculine energy in the universe. Together, these two elements are a part of every creative act, whether it be conception, the moment of inspiration in art, or the birth of the universe.  When the magnetic and electric fluids are acting together, Fate (the laws of the universe) comes forth to bargain and accept them as payment for the changes we wish to make in reality—so great is their value and their influence.

     With magical empathy, Istiphul senses my whole being and uses her beauty to make me feel complete.  She creates a space of love where two souls may find each other and unite as one.  Her great gift and mastery are nothing other than knowledge all those on earth who have found true love practice and celebrate.

 

A Secret Longing of the Kings of the Earth

 

Istiphul is the one for whom the kings of the world have longed to have as their consort.  But their bards, wise men, sages, priests, druids, and Brahmans, at least those who knew of her, would not disclose her name or reveal her existence—due to selfishness, yes, but there is more.  They were strangely silent as if something they could not even bring into their consciousness bound them, forbidding even one song to be written or spoken—Lest human evolution take a different turn from what has been ordained or from a course that moves within acceptable boundaries.

     And so it has been that some bards have had a distinct advantage in living their lives with an unknown zest, a passion and abandon kings do not possess.  But sensing that this happiness is a real possibility, the kings of old made it against the law to interfere with the work of bards—they were waiting to hear songs such as this that it might lighten their woes and replace the darkness in their souls with songs of mirth and rapture blended.

     And so I tell you that if Helen of Troy had been as beautiful as Istiphul, it would not have been just the Greeks and Trojans but the entire world at war over the right to kiss her lips.  And Lancelot, our knight in shining armor, would have overcome his obsession with Guinevere, though not many knights would have been left to quest for the Holy Grail if they had known the name Istiphul.  And forget not that Merlin, too, met his match in Niniane, who made a fool of him and trapped him under a rock.  Yet Niniane was but a mortal woman and could not compare to Istiphul

     Henry the Eighth would not have embraced Protestant Christianity, nor would he have pursued so many wives seeking an heir if there had been a John Dee who had shown the king Istiphul in his magic mirror; no, the king would have lost his interest in posterity with distractions this ripe. 

     For that matter, if Gauguin or Michelangelo had met Istiphul, their faces would have turned white, their hands shaking, and their heartbeats arrhythmic.  But their eyes would not have strayed for an instant. They would have stood for two days without pausing until they had captured her face on their canvas.

     Even Hegel and Marx would have had second thoughts.  They would have added a new twist to the march of the dialectic.  They would have insisted there is a place where both the Geist that unfolds history and the human soul must go in order to be rejuvenated.

     Kierkegaard, too, would have renounced despair and angst had Istiphul’s touch traced lightning through his bones; that is right, his “fear and trembling” would have had an entirely different meaning—on this I speak from experience!  In fact, if William Blake had seen Istiphul as more than a blur in the distance his visions would have rivaled the Prophet Isaiah and the Apostle John.

     The sages whose songs originated the Vedas and Upanishads did not know of Istiphul—barely an echo of her is heard anywhere in the world’s mythologies.  For if they had known her, the poets of India would not have been so fanciful in populating the celestial realms with such a glittering array of deities.  No!  They would have been more empirical and stuck closer to nature as they fashioned images—their mystical dreams would have been more concrete and filled with the sounds of waves, wind, rain, and the seas.

     And that other child of India, the Buddha—with his gentle, enigmatic, and transcendental smile—his smile would have been kinder, the compassion more convincing, had the artists of India sculpted statutes of Istiphul from marble and ivory. 

     The Tibetans say that the Buddha already knew of Istiphul.  The Buddha once changed his form into that of Kalachakra at the request of King Suchandra, who was from Shambhala.  At that time, the Buddha included Istiphul as one of the 720 entities within the mandala of planetary liberation—though she is known there by another name and  her beauty is not as clearly seen as it is within my poetry.

     But my exploration of the four elements on earth would not be complete if I did not speak of Istiphul.  And though until now no bard was free to speak her name aloud and reveal her beauty to the world, neither seal nor secret may bind or limit my voice—you see, my patron, Divine Providence, has so ordered it.

 

 

                                                                          Channeling Istiphul 

 

Introduction: Using a Medium

 

Franz Bardon gives references in his books to using mediums for various purposes.  In the Bible, King Saul has the witch of Endor channel the departed Prophet Samuel.  The deceased prophet appears and answers the king’s questions accurately predicting the king’s future. 

   There are various interpretations of this story depending on the assumptions made by the authors.  Though I mention this example, the channeling I discuss relates to living spirits and not those who are deceased.  (Note: In the Bible, using a medium is forbidden but do not forget that all prophets are mediums channeling Yahweh.) 

    Some of the difficulties involving channeling also apply to telepathy: the nature spirit does not use any human language to think.  It existed before religions appeared on earth.  It is not bound by human ethics or morality.  It dwells in a realm of pure power even if the expression of that power is love and empathy.  And it perceives and acts outside of the symbols, rituals, and activities of human civilization. 

   Basically, to channel is to find a midpoint or areas of experience shared in common between the nature spirit and the human being.  When I do telepathy, the spirit and I have the same vibration in each of our minds.  I sense through that vibration how the spirit thinks and perceives.  And the spirit uses my experiences and my understanding of life to express its wisdom and insight. 

   The test of channeling or telepathy is the extent it generates new insight and understanding.  The goal is to experience something a little further beyond the familiar boundaries in which you feel or perceive.  If you go too far beyond the familiar, you may end up with something that has no application and no meaning in our world. 

   I like to write poems because the poetic imagery helps me capture perceptions far outside of my daily life.  But in a sense, we are all mediums.  As the undine suggests, part of our brain or being is water.  If we just focus in and through that aspect of ourselves, we see the world and can dream it in a completely new way.  The voice of the undine is our own voice when we feel and dream through the element of water that is in us. 

   What was extraordinary about this experience for me was that as the woman channeled I could see the undine Istiphul quite clearly standing about two feet behind the medium.  Istiphul’s beauty is breath taking.  It is otherworldly and absolutely extraordinary.

 

Location

 

We are sitting on a balcony of a hotel overlooking the ocean and the beach.

   I begin by talking with the medium about an experience I had with water.  The woman immediately set aside her own personality and began speaking as the undine.  When she would pause, I asked questions. 

 

Opening Statement: When I first came to Hawaii, I visited the beach in Waianae.  I floated just outside where the waves break.  I then let my body roll over the waves and they would curl me up and throw me on the beach.  Then I would let the undertow drag me out again.  My family probably thought I was losing it.  But I did that over and over.    

  For three days after that I felt these rolling waves flowing through my body.  I imagine a lot of people do not know how to let go like that.  It is no longer you …      

 

Medium, channeling Istiphul:

 

If you let go, we can influence you.  Our auras pass through you.  If you can not let go, then nothing we are can touch you.  Our love fails to reach you.  

  We teach about beginnings and endings and acceptance.  Life and death—the circle of the earth, the ocean that gives birth—the seasons of life, the rhythms of change—we flow in and through these things.  We flow through your body with every breath.  But to know us, if nothing else, learn this: to let go and to flow. 

   We accept you as we accept all things.  We can cleanse and nurture you and put you back on solid ground again. 

    But you will then remember. You will never forget us.

    We are the blood in your veins.  We are the tears in your eyes.  And even earth holds water.  But in the oceans is where you find us.  In the pools, on the beaches, in the rivers is where we sing and dance. 

   And if you watch the light just so you will see us rise from the sea.  But to go further, you have to feel release; you have to open and to give freely.  Then you sense our receptivity and feel as we feel.  Then you will know you are the child and we are the mother, the lover, and the sister.  

   But for women we are the ultimate.  We are release.  We are the tides of life and change.  You come from us and return to us.

   It is why the legends are as they are about women and the sea because the women personify who we are.  

     We give rituals.  We are the origins of the bathes—to come and change in the moonlight; to remember who you are, who you were, and where you are going.  This is a way to connect with us and to be one with us.

   You seek us because you need what we give freely; and you fear the part of you that is earth--that takes and analyzes, the grandularity [as in grains of sand] in you is so unwatery.  It is not us. 

   Why are you afraid of the sea? You can not analyze who we are.  We come to you because the part of your brain that is all water receives us.  And sings to us and we sing to you.  But you are afraid of the sea.  Come swim with us.  We have so much to give.   We hold the treasures and beauty in all the waters of the earth.   

  You will not die by sea.  Know this.  You will not drown in water. We will take you and support you and lead you to safety. Do not be afraid of the sea that reaches over the horizon and stretches between the continents.  

    On the open sea there is always danger.  But look—they (indicating those on the beach nearby) play in us.  They dance in us.  But yet it is a few feet out.  But they trust us and we care for them because they love water.  We are receptive like no wife or lover, but we are in all wives and sisters and children.

   The laughter of a child is like light on waves.  The beauty of women is the gift of the sea—to feel received and embraced.  And yet the unknown dances within them.

    So take your children to play in the waves.  Dance with them in the water and show them how to be unafraid.  

   Feel the touch of water on your skin awaken the water within your body—they merge and blend in sensations and in feelings.  Be with us.  Seek us; see us rise from the sea. 

 

Question: And of love? This is one of your great mysteries, powers, and skills.   

 

Love is the treasure.  You may seek it but it can not be found.  It is only given.  Love comes when you do not expect it, when you are not thinking about it.     

   Those who seek love seek to bind us.  This is due to your grandularity.  But if you embrace us you will find love everywhere.  

    Every touch reminds of our embrace and every kiss of our love.  We are unconditional yet demanding as is all love.  Love is given freely but it asks for surrender and to surrender to love is to give up being earth. 

   Earth is solid.  Earth is form.  Earth is what separates you from me.  But love is release. Love is surrender.

  A woman is ocean and fire and love made whole.  Fire cools and melts earth into liquid form so it can be soothed and shaped into beauty as seen in sculptures in Athens and Istanbul.  All beautiful women of history are earth, and fire, and water. 

   When form changes, the memory remains.  In the ocean, with us is the repository of all knowledge. 

    In love, we are made real. Love is the truth of God as the ocean in all her forms.  Love is knowledge.  Love is lust.  Love is pain.  Love is life. 

  But love demands.  It gives but it demands.  It has a price. 

   Form is unable truly to conceive of love because it is restrained and restricted.  Only those who embody us are able to love with  passion and to surrender to the one who surrenders.  In such acts we are found.  

 

Question: And the pure force of attraction that undines possess--as power it can cause lightning to strike in a storm over the sea?

 

Why do you question that?  Who does not feel the elemental force in love? Even among ourselves, when we play we are enamored of who we are.  We love and are love. 

   When we touch, we inspire.  Would ugliness do such a thing?  It is what we are.  Lightning strikes, particles separate and come together.  We are that spark of light.  We are divine.  A moment of love is such that its memory can last a lifetime.

   Those who meet us in the flesh and in the spirit are changed forever.  Our memory lasts and spurs you on to greater things.

   We are the fire of water.  We are inspiration.  We are a dream fulfilled. 

 

Question: What things can we learn from you that we may bring back to our world and offer to others?  

 

Passion.  Emotion.  Movement--look at the sea. 

  They ride the tides.  We are one with the wind.  We are one with the fire.  We are one with the earth.  We are one with the air.  We are synergy.

   A ship on the water is made of and powered by fire or wind.  But the ocean is our body.

   We are synergy--all things within all things.  The ocean is whole as it contains all forms and varieties of life.

    Undines are the embodiment of love because we inspire the highs of love and the lows of lust.  We are both.  We embrace who we are.  

   (laughing) This body I am using desires to be the sea. 

 

Question: So why hasn’t the human race in history presented more stories about mermaids and undines. 

 

We do not watch and then intervene to produce results. We are about the beingness of life that is not quantified.  Like women, we are not quantifiable.

   We come in dreams from realms that are hidden.  Whose sextant can mark the quadrants of the imagination or chart the kingdoms of feeling?  We come to those who accept us.  But if you can not let go, if you can not release control, you will never know our hearts. 

 

Question: How would humanity be different if undines were a part of our normal personalities and consciousness? 

 

You would know our depths of love and receptivity.  We understand our place in the world around us.  We understand that we are a part of the sea and that as it is a part of us. It contains and is free. We contain and are free.

    Those who are free as we are do not desire control because we control our own destinies. We make our own decisions. We do not worry who is doing what. As the ocean, what drop of water worries about the other drop of water?  It is all one. 

  We rage as all things do at times.  To know us is to know the cycles of life. To know us is to know the secrets of dreams.  To know us is to know love, to see beauty in all of its forms.

    A coral is a living thing.  A shark is a living thing. It is deadly but it is beautiful as a porpoise is deadly and beautiful but what do you fear more the porpoise or the shark? 

  Acceptance that life and death are part of the cycle and that all things have a purpose and a place.

  Acceptance of growth to higher levels.  Acceptance of evolution not in the sense of you must destroy but in the sense of life will win out.  Life will find a way.  Life is diverse and death is a part of it.   

  In the oceans, in nature, when needs are satisfied all things live well.  We must eat.  We must survive.  But we do not destroy our own kind.  Once needs are fulfilled, all things live together.

   The spirit bodies on this planet have been given flesh to experience sensation.  All things must experience seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, the senses on a nominal level to appreciate the senses on an extraordinary level. 

   The colors, the fabrics, to touch, to feel, to experience the sensations.  When we are not physical these are things that we have left behind.  Yet we remain attracted to physical form because it is hard to leave behind to touch, to see, to hear, to listen.

   You have run away from so much.  You have forgotten that you are all one.  Your species has a special gift of experiencing the senses and then interpreting and expressing them.   

   There was a time in the world when all were artists and they destroyed themselves because of their art.  Ego is not limited to your civilization. 

  So the gods separated people giving different talents to different people.  But the bards are the reminders; they remember; and we speak to them and they speak to us and they share us with the world.  And if a bard is particularity receptive and has no fear we manifest to them and they become our avatars.

 

Question: For some humans the beauty of undines is so great that if the undines draw close to them they no longer want to return to their own bodies.  They will want to stay in your realm, your kingdom.

 

We are not responsible for that.  We are what we are.  If a woman is of a particular essence she will become one of us and we will teach her and we will transform her.

    We are a gift of life to all.  The beauty we possess is not to be bound or enslaved.  It is to be expressed and shared.  We push away those who pursue us but who are unwilling to share their experiences with us.  It is not our nature to be subject to anyone. We are water and only the moon rules our lives. 

 

Question: And sometimes the undines come over and dwell in the bodies of women to marry men.

 

All species seek to perpetrate themselves.  And as all, we like our beauty written about. 

 We are female and are narcissistic, yes, we like our beauty.

  And we will dwell in one and we will mate with one and create beauty and it will go in our archives.  We will bring our daughter back to us.

   Beauty inspires and we are beauty.  Why should we not wish it to be in a form that will inspire.  It is what we do.

  We will find one who is appropriate.  And we will give one of our own to that one.  The child of the union can choose to stay with you or return to us.  There is free choice in this matter.  

 

Question: Should there be a way found for undines to dwell forever among mankind.

 

 We are already forever.  We do not sojourn. We simply live and as water moves freely into different forms so do we.  We go where we wish.  

   We are among you whenever you see water, even drinking. Drink! You have no water in you.  Let it sooth as it flows down your throat.  A touch of the ocean.

   We are already among you in your art, in your sculpture.  We are among you in your wife, your mother, and your daughters and your children.  We are in the blood that flows through your brains.

   When you drink of this water you drink us.  We are in every drop of liquid on this planet.  When we become flesh it is because we desire to inspire.  And every time you see beauty you will see us. 

    See beauty in all things and see us.  We are in the words that come from your mind through your mouth to your pen.  We see what you write and we laugh when you are out of words and out of art and then you are undine.

 

Question: Are there any mysteries or kinds of magic that are forbidden to mankind to learn?  Is everything you know available for us to seek?

 

There are mysteries that can not be contained in a physical body.  There are mysteries of spirit.  But this is why beings transform.   

  When your work is finished on this planet, you go to the next one where there are new things to learn.  Knowledge is vast and beautiful.  For an undine, knowledge is soft and loved and we lust for it. 

    The pursuit of knowing possesses its own passion.  It is fire like the fire in a lighthouse that draws the ship.  It is as air that cools the fevered breeze.  It is earth and rocks.

  As we see it, the knowledge of undines is the ultimate.  Knowledge dances before you and once you quench your thirst for one experience there is another to follow.  Light on water contains endless paths of beauty to be explored.

  We dance in the waves beckoning you.  Come meet us. 

  You wish to know our deepest secrets.  In the near future, we will find a way to share these things with you.  You will meet undines in the flesh and then you shall understand our nature.

 

Question: All women can become sensual like undines.  This is obvious.

 

Yes

 

Question: But not easy.  The ego again is the obstacle.

 

All women are water.  The Chaldeans with their astrology changed the perception of women.  Their use of words and images taught men to think of women as equally made of air, earth, and fire. 

   But for woman to consider themselves anything other than water is a great mistake.

  We, the undines, are women.  In us is the flow of life. 

  Yet all women can become what we are.  When they lose sight of us they forget their own nature.  How can one forget that there is blood flowing through the body or that feeling can be expressed with tears?  We are the blood within women.   

    Men are different. They are not one with the tides.

    That is why a woman who senses the undine within her seeks the ocean.  She holds like the sea the seed of life--the birth of every child is from out of water.  And when she goes through her tides it is as the ebb and flow of the ocean.

  Beauty is created and inspired for women to remember the beauty that they were and the beauty that they are; and an old song only becomes better with repeated listening.

  True, it is the nature of women to seek stability as the ocean seeks the shore.  But if they forget the ocean, they forget how the seasons of life come alive within and through them.  But if they remember they will always be undine.

 

Question: The sea covers the land that is referred to as Atlantis.  Is it time for Atlantis to come back?

 

It is always time; it has always been waiting.  We have left hints all over the world.  We have left clues.  There is writing and there are frescos.  There are bards who sing of these things.  And we have been waiting.

  We can not tell the time for the returning for the tides of the boundless have left the hearts of men and women.  And so this thing is not known to undines.  The knowledge if found is in the realm of spirit.  

   We are desire and we desire.  And we inspire to bring this about.

   But in time you will build it and bring it back.  And we shall return also.  We will walk in flesh with others.  We will have children and the world will be beautiful.

 

Question: What would make a good lover for an undine? If a man were an undine’s lover, what would an undine want?  What would he be like?

 

My sisters do not like me to speak so much of my loves.  Bryon my poet.  I like him. 

     Words, beautiful words--the man with the little words, the E.E. Cummings, he has gone and we have sought him and we would like to make him one of us.  So we seek one like him. 

   Passion.  We like passion turned into words like drops of water dancing as a rainbow upon the horizon.  A lover should know how to speak so that the fire in his heart awakens passion in another. 

   A lover should celebrate the beauty we are and walk among us as one of us. 

   I see many entering the ocean.  Know that no one will die today on the shores of this island.  We are near; we will protect them.

 

Question: And the mermen--what are merman for mermaids?

 

When Atlantis fell some escaped.  We hide them but they are the children of the ocean.  As all sea creatures they are curious, ever ready are they to take form and walk among you.

 They are fascinated by senses and sensations.  They remember and are long lived.  They are our children.

    There is great suffering on your planet.  But sometimes we will help one to escape the suffering by becoming one of us.

  But then they may miss the world left behind.  Like a woman among the Silkies, she becomes enamored of the green land of the pearl of the sea.  She lives among your race to have many children.

  Even now they appear.

  It is not easy for those caught in desire between land and sea.  They are neither one nor the other but the form is not just ours.  And they do not like stone to contain them.

  But they bring us children.  And our memory lives on.  We are content when beauty appears even if it is not our form. 

 

Question, What would be a good story if the story is told about an undine. What should it have in it? What would appeal to you?   What are drama and suspense and life unfolding as a story?  You are outside of time but we like closure and defining events.

 

 But it is continuous--why must it stop?  As the sunsets on the ocean, they go on and on.  

    Beauty like Venus always comes from the water--look at the light.  We are outside of time but we like your pictures.  We sometimes come up and watch you do your photo shoots. 

  We like your model, the one with the eyes like the sea.  She acts and plays as one of us.

  Make your own happy ending.  I like how your model thinks—she likes happy endings.  Struggle, but then greet harmony.  To aspire to joy.   

 I hear the words in your model’s mind—“Never give up.” Some things are worth striving for.  

   There must be love. There must be beauty. There must be an idea.  There must be dance.  And many good words.  In the beginning, desire; in the middle, a journey.  In the end, achievement, not complete but something to build on.  If you have love, you have achieved.  If you make beauty, you have become undine.  This we love to see.

  

Shall we take a break.

 

(The medium is shivering and as she returns to her own personality, she says:)

 

I feel like crying.

 

(Drinking water)

 

I’m Okay.   

  

 

Conclusion

 

I love some of the ideas coming through the medium.  I like the idea that for undines all women are predominately water.  And that it was the ancient, male astrologers who screwed up by presenting women as embodying equally the four elements. 

  I like the complexity and element of choice in that there is movement back and forth between humans and undines; an undine can enter a woman and have children as a woman.  And then the children have choice. They can go either way--the child one day will decide whether to return to the realm of mermaids or remain among our race.  But while alive, the person has a dual passport permitting entrance into both lands. 

   This may make no sense to anyone until you have interacted directly with undines.  Then you appreciate the lure of their domain.  Extensive communication with undines makes it easy to enter their realm.  

   The undine also commented on one of my models.  When I shoot a model on a beach, I often sense that the undines commenting and exerting an influence.  They are demanding—the girl must love water.  If she loves water, then wonderful things happen during the shoot. 

   If the model is not acceptable to the undine, the camera may have technical difficulties.  When they like the girl, they lend us some of their energy so the model let’s go into the flow of the moment.    

 

On Mediums and Anthropology

 

I have an advanced degree in linguistics.  I found linguistics helpful because it points out that meaning is not just determined by the words spoken.  You have to take into consideration the context of the communication and the intention of the speaker. 

   There used to be an idea in linguistics that one language might not be able to express what is in another language because the lexical items have no equivalent.  For example, some asserted that Eskimo had thirty or more words for the one word we have for snow. 

   This assertion could not be sustained.  Not only does English have a great many words for snow, but if there are different kinds of snow, an individual need only describe each one with an adjective or a sentence or two.  And though this may be longer, you have in effect communicated what you wanted to say.   

   Here is the problem.  What if the native speakers actually perceive and feel things beyond the reach of people in Western civilization?  This question was never asked by linguists or anthropologists.  

   Now you have a problem.  It does not matter if you use words that precisely define what is said by the native.  There is no way to communicate the meaning because the Westerner can not experience what is so simple and obvious to a nature speaker.

  Ever attended a Katchina dance among the Hopi Indians?  The entire race of Hopi are mediums.  When someone dances wearing a Katchina mask, the Hopi can talk about when the spirit of the mask is present within the mask.  This is no longer a discussion of language and definitions.  We are discussing perception.  Hopi can perceive when the spirit is in the mask.

    The first anthropologists who studied the Hopi Indians entered their kivas and carefully recorded the rituals word for word.  These anthropologists had not first researched and created an experimental model for the study of mediums.  Such topics were and are not a part of university research.  

   The same is true about the ancient hula dancer in Hawaii.  To dance is to evoke the goddess of the hula, Laka, into oneself. How do you explain how to do this to a Christian missionary?  If the missionary can not understand this, then he can not understand his own Bible. 

   In the Bible it states that King Saul prophesized when he came into the presence of the Prophet Samuel and his company.  King Saul was not a particularly spiritual man.  But the Prophet Samuel was known to use dance in order to prophesy. 

    From my point of view, what is needed is a spiritual anthropology.  You have to consider such questions as, What is it to be a human being? What are our possibilities?  And what is the range of our perceptions?  Without considering these questions in a rigorous manner free of bias, ideology, and doctrine, it will be easy to twist and distort one’s observations in order to fit them into preconceived categories.

 

On Telepathy and Translation

 

A good interpreter at the United Nations takes into account the intention in the mind of the speaker in order to choose the right word and phrase to translate.  The translators will tell you that translating is an art.  Translating during the United Nations Assembly is performing art.

   When a spirit, a non material being, communicates with a human being you get a vibration in your mind.  A vibration in your mind you can translate in different ways.  If you take the vibration and use the part of your brain that is visual you get an image.  The same with the other senses: the vibration can be translated into a note or word; into feeling; into physical sensations; tastes or smells too. 

   For example, I can explain to certain women how to place part of their awareness inside of another person.  This is a psychic activity.  If such a woman places her mind within my body, I can experience this in different ways.  I may sense her physical body as my own.  But her physical body is not even touching me.  In this case, her presence within me--the vibration--produces physical sensations.  

  I may sense her soul and her feelings as my own—I feel exactly what she feels; call that clairsentience.  I may be able to speak words that express the exact thought she is thinking: call that telepathy.  I may be able to see things she experienced in the past and talk about her memories as if I myself experienced them; call that empathy.  

  In each example, there is nothing else than a vibration that passes between the woman and myself.  But according to the intent and the strength and qualities of the one transmitting and the one receiving, you can get a variety of different results.

   When the undine talks through the medium, I am not just listening to the words spoken.  I am sensing the undine’s presence also.  So what I “hear” from the words spoken is a transmission to my brain as well.  What is written is inherently art. 

   We are not trying to express some esoteric experience that occurs among Hopi Indians or Hawaiians so as to record an oral tradition.  We are moving between a spiritual race dwelling in nature and human beings.  There is therefore a greater degree of difficulty in translating.  

   All that same, I think as more and more individuals interact with undines there will develop a body of art, literature, and culture around the experience.  And in particular some of the gifts of the undines will be received and passed on among us.  This is my intention and this is also the intention of the undines.  

 

 

                                         The Ocean of Love Exercise

 

In this exercise, we put together physical sensations and feelings.  Imagine that you are in the center of an ocean of water.  This ocean extends in all directions around you.  Imagine the water of this ocean as being cool, perhaps blue green, pure, and flowing. 

    Now, add to this imagined sensation of an ocean the feeling of love.  The water is a presence that is nurturing, healing, renewing, and fulfilling.  It brings to life whatever it touches.  We are now within and part of an ocean of love.        

   Some will be able to imagine the sensations of water surrounding them but have difficulty adding the feeling of love.  Recall again that the sea brought life into being and that it sustains life.  The magnetic field within the sea offers us dreams of the way our consciousness can be expressed and extended.  Once you sense the feeling that is inside water, the sea becomes a powerful symbol.  It embodies the sensations and feelings of all-embracing love.   

   Take a few moments to explore this imagery.  Imagine that you are this sea of love.  Identify with this vast field of energy without referring back to yourself as being in a specific location or even having a bodily form.  You are love, and this love is everywhere.

    Now, visualize another person in front of you, someone with whom you are familiar.  Visualize the person’s body as being empty inside.  Next, imagine that as the sea you begin to flow down through the top of this person’s head into his or her body and out of the person’s feet. 

    As you do so, sense everything within this person.  Your cool, flowing water heals, purifies, harmonizes, and nourishes.  Pain and tension dissolve.  Frustration and unhappiness disappear.  The individual feels whole, complete, happy, and serene.  In effect, you are uniting the individual with this sea of all-embracing love. 

    As you perform this exercise, retain the feeling that you are the entire ocean.  Your energy and love are inexhaustible and everywhere.  As the ocean, you are pure receptivity, and no obstacle limits your power to flow and to remain pure. 

    One woman to whom I taught this exercise was able to produce strong sensations of flowing water combined with love in other people who were in no way psychic.  It took two minutes to teach her the exercise.  A minute later, with this simple meditation she was extending her aura through the body and mind of another person with effects that were unmistakable. 

    Another woman said to me after practicing the exercise, “I already do this everyday with my boyfriend.  I just never put it into words the way you do.”

    Again, undines feel that they are part of the sea, and the nature of the sea is love.  They also perceive others as being within this sea, and so naturally they sense what is inside of others.  Unlike magical empathy, which requires an effort, undine empathy is automatic and effortless.  There is no focusing of will.  Undines sense what is inside of you.  The love that they feel in themselves is the same that they sense flowing through you. 

    For undines, there is one energy of life within and animating all beings.  Our religions and mystics sometimes speak of this.  Undines embody it.

     I have been fortunate to be able to interview women who feel this sea of love surrounding them in every moment.  These women possess undine empathy.  Whether or not you believe in undines, undine empathy is already present in our world and can be learned by anyone.  

     A simple version of the ocean of love exercise is to notice when you are around someone who is tense and frustrated, insecure or anxious.  Now, imagine that you are a small waterfall flowing into a mountain pool.  The water again is cool, flowing, purifying, calm, and serene.  The spray from the falls creates a small rainbow in the air. 

    You become the falls and the pool.  You are not interfering with anyone, but anyone near you may feel your benevolent influence.  The effects are nonverbal, subliminal, and body to body.  It is one thing to seek to love others.  It is another thing to incorporate into your love the power and beauty of water in nature.  This healing power is the undines’ gift to us.                   

    

 

                                                          Conclusion

 

These words are from the story of Istiphul.  I put them together to form a poem. 

    Istiphul’s skill is creating a magical space of love.  The ocean of love meditation has many variations.  This is one.

 

Istiphul  

 

He sensed her fragrance in the wind

Her touch in the spray and drops of water running down his skin

Her voice in the sounds of the breaking waves

No wonder then she appears to him

Speaking words woven from wind and water, out of sky and sea,

Saying,  

 

I have the skill and the will to create a sacred space

Where two separate souls may as one embrace.

 

On behalf of the human race, he responds,

This is not so easily done. 

 

She persists: 

 

In this moment, by the rhythm of the waves

And their foamy crests, by the ocean’s vast depths,

I exist only to fulfill your needs;

I give of myself that your dreams may be complete,

For such is the power of love—

To fuse the deepest desires in one

With the deepest desires in the other.

Can’t you see that I have taken on form and shape

That you may taste the sea in its intimacy?

 

He replies,

Though I sense you inside me, part of me, and one with me,

Though I taste what you taste—

That the essence of water is ecstasy,

When you leave me, your love like a spell

Will dissolve and the taste will fade away

Like the light of the setting sun. 

 

This is not about me, about undines, or the sea.

You must search your heart till every barrier

Separating one from another is cast aside forever.

 

Perhaps if you teach me the magic of water

I might find in myself your receptive grace—

To freely embrace another without restrictions or limitations.

 

What do you sense in my presence?

 

I sense the open ocean—the sounds, scents, and sensations

Of waves stretching from horizon to horizon. 

 

There is more, for in love there is no separation.

Relax, let go, flow

Feel at the core of your being the foam sailing free

From a thousand waves and the songs of release they are singing.

Let your body feel the vastness of the sea flowing through it.

Become the primordial sea—

Feel its heartbeat, its breath, its currents, its tides,

And myriads of life forms dwelling within it.

Let go and be as me—the soul of the sea.

 

I can unite with the vast magnetic expanse that encircles the earth

But where in this is the power of love?  

 

The sea contains an ancient dream—

To love and be loved in return.   

I do what the sea does—

I give all of myself, my heart, soul, mind, and being

Completely, freely, whenever we meet.   

 

How so?

 

In this way--let the essence of my femininity

Flow through every nerve in your body. 

Come with me

Give me your mind and one hour of your time

And I will give you a life time

You as my king and I as your queen by your side

In a realm of magic and dream

Hidden in the depths of the sea.

 

I accept. 

She touches my skin and I feel the sea ringing within

And waves breaking on all the beaches of the world.

Her lips touch mine but for a moment

And I am freed of all human need

I see the lightning storm at sea

That gave birth to life on earth

I see as she sees—

That to love alone is given this key—

To see what has been and what shall be

Even as she speaks,

 

One day women will love

With all the power and the beauty the sea holds, 

For they will discover that my touch, my sight, and my heart

Are hidden within their own.

 

I return to human form

Like a sailor returning from unknown lands

Bearing treasures of love

From realms of wonder and mystery

That have not yet entered mankind’s dreams. 

 

She says to me,

 

It is both wonderful and terrible

The gift human beings possess—

To be so lonely and yet so proud

Because hidden within you is a will

That can recreate the world.

 

She kisses me on the lips, holds me close,

Then turns and departs into the depths of the ocean—

Like a wave colliding with the shore surges back and blends again

 With the sea from which it arose,

Taking with her 10,000 treasures of love

No explorer has ever found.