I plunge in, head-first, briny waters sluicing across my body as I dive down, the song of the deep sea coursing through my veins. Glimmers of honeyed sunlight sparkle through the surface of the water, patterns of dragonfly wing and kingfisher feather, paths of light like skeins of gold reaching down into the depths below me.

Springs bubble up from the land, overflowing with prayers of joy and new life, bursting exuberantly from the earth. Snow melts on distant mountaintops with the coming of the spring, songs of fresh icy water racing down mountain sides to reach the awakening valleys, white, yellow and purple pushing up through the dark soil of winter death to bring the prayer of spring’s kiss.

She glows down in the deep, the sea hare can see her, ready to rise, as the glowing orb of the sun hisses his way down into the waves, ready to sink and rest for the night. They will cross each other shortly, as the moon in her fullness rises from the depths and takes her place, Queen of the night sky, Empress of the stars.

I remember the afternoon I met her. I had wandered down to the rocky beach by the house I had moved into some months prior, in the cold and windy February. The weather was starting to warm up now, after a short and gloomy rainy season. I wasn’t brave enough to get in the water yet, it still felt chillingly cold on my feet, lapping vestiges of the winter, but as I looked out across the rippling turquoise water, I saw a woman gliding over the sparkling sea. 

She is slim and delicate-looking, a young woman shining in the beauty of her youth, she is nonetheless past her first blooming and into her self-contained strength as a woman. She still has the unfettered freedom of young womanhood, without a babe or serious lover to anchor her in the protective, but sometimes restrictive shell of a family.

She is the wise ancient one of the sea, a witch that seems to hold all of the secrets of the world. Her cave is wondrous to behold, with shells and pearls, living coral of every hue, as well as drowned statues, coins and ingots, stretching back many thousands of years. Tales and stories of this wise witch spread into every cranny and canyon of all the seas and oceans.

Once there was a woman that wanted to sail to the other side of the wind. Whenever the wind blew, it blew her away, and no matter how hard she fought, she couldn’t fight her way through to the other side. When the wind dropped, she couldn’t find it again to try again.