Naiad Dawns, and the Tea Time Chronicles

"Undersea Creatures" pendant by Carolina Gonzalez

Water, I love water. My sun and moon are in water signs, neptune sits at the bottom of my chart, for a tropical-born I can hardly stand heat, I've never lived far from some kind of shore and have a fascination with poddles.. I was born in a little island, and as a child my family owned a house close to a small beach that no one but the locals knew of, so it felt like we owned it. It was our little beach.. Whenever I swam, I fancied myself a mermaid, and tried my best to swim with my legs joined together. My legs also sport light coffee-stain birthmarks, the same on each leg which can be seen more clearly when I've tanned. It's a long patch that starts at the base of the heel and spreads upwards through the calf until it disappears. I liked to think of it as markings from when my mermaid tail got split into a pair of legs.

I've had a number of mermaid dreams. One I remember and love particularly was sometime around a birthday. I was somewhere in the middle of the ocean, but it wasn't just ocean, it was a glittering, sparkling crystal blue ocean. It was some kind of reef, where the water was very shallow, like a pool. There I was a mermaid and so was my mother who sat next to me. She gave me a birthday gift, which was a beautiful sea shell with a pearl inside. And somewhere in the distance a cruise ship passed, but they couldn't see us. It was such a lovely place and I'll always remember it.. Days later I received some money and gifts for my birthday, a seashell notebook, a unicorn plush and with the money I bought myself stunningly illustrated fairytales, The Little Mermaid included..

Another time I remember was deep in the ocean, no idea what time of the day it was, because it was fairly deep under water. There were some other merpeople families there, some of which needed some kind of help and that's what myself and others were doing. - I remember swimming under water, following others and whitnessing things and merpeople in some kind of trouble.

And the last one I remember clearly was by a shore at night. It was a full moon, and full doesn't describe it, I mean that moon was enormous and glowing. It was almost as clear as day, but a kind of pale blue light.

There were many other mermaids around, and one in particular who was a sort of leader.

I remember her encouraging me to dive deep into the water. The water was dark, with the light of the moon glowing above.. - I've always been afraid of dark waters, especially the kind that's deep in the ocean. Once a friend sent me a zip file with assorted wallpaper images and as I browsed through them in full-screen mode, suddenly one of an underwater photo of a whale took over my screen and I looked away in terror.

Try as hard as I did, I simply could not look at that picture. It was so irrational and silly, but I really couldn't do it without feeling some kind of panic. - To get it out of my screen I basically covered the screen with paper and aimed at the little 'x' in the corner.

Weeks later I tried to look at it again, with the same results.. So basically, I have some irrational fear of deep dark waters.

And these were very similar, so my mermaid friend was trying to help me overcome it by encouraging me to dive deep.

I gathered some courage and finally did it. After that dream, several weeks of Tori Amos music, re-discovering what it really means to be a woman and finding a better sense of emotional contentment and balance took place.

The day before I had this dream I contemplated one of my favourites in the "Faeries' Oracle" from Brian Froud, Tobaira of the Waters. It could've been her who helped me dive in that dream.

A man who'd been born blind and had psychic sensitivities once felt like giving me a free reading, I hadn't told him anything about myself, and one of the first things he mentioned was a connection to faeries, particularly the water kind. This put a big smile on my face and I shall never forget it. Mostly because at the time I had kept my faerie connection to myself, I really thought I was over it, but for the looks of it I wasn't done with faeries nor were faeries done with me!

So you see, I love mermaids, naiads, nymphs, undines, selkies, sirens and every other name water faeries have been given. I can't say I'm good at singing, but I've always danced and to me, that's very much like swimming in an ocean of melody. Nothing compares to that feeling.

And today I'm going to show you some lovely art by Nishale from Rehovot, Israel:

This is a "Mermaid Princess" pendant she created with shrink plastic. I've been spoiling myself a little these days, all in the name of birthday celebrations, so I couldn't resist getting this sweet pendant for myself!

Here's an incredibly sweet needle felt pin by her:

I can't get over her baby shoes, these are reversible:

And her fairytale characters, look at Butterfly Mouse!

Nishale has two Etsy shops which can be found below, enjoy!
Nishale.etsy.com
AYALONET.etsy.com

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Mermaids

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