The Cauldron of the Sea

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. Rain falls gently, carrying whispers of sky and cloud and wind, capturing them in small drops that fall to the earth, soaking into her waiting body. Formed around the cries of wild birds, their wings and feathers and untamed voices at the centre of each drop.

Streams flow and wind, racing excitedly through chants of rock and earth, over melodies of stone and sand, caressed by weeping willow leaves tracing patterns on the surface, like fingers dangled languidly under summer’s heat. Silver scale of fish, brown fur drumbeats of vole, otter and beaver scatter in the flow. Streams meet and join, braiding these prayers together to become rivers, full and vibrant, clattering down the uplands, carving deep valleys, adorned in thick greenery of lichens, soft sumptuous mosses and delicate trailing tendrils of fern and ivy, all woven into the unending prayer of the rivers. Over boulders and down waterfalls they rush, frothing with air and wind. 

On the lowlands, rivers widen and slow, languorous and unhurried. Wildflower meadows and woodland decked in burning autumn finery brush the rivers, dropping harmonies into their quiet flow, their slow braiding and winding weaving in tales of seasons and earth into a song of many voices. As they flow ever closer to the arms of the sea, they hold in them all that has fed them, from land and sky, from animal and plant, from spirit and matter.

Eventually all waters flow back in the Cauldron of the Sea, deep belly waiting. In this deep and mysterious cauldron weave all the prayers of water, land and sky. Glacier, snow and ice, pond, spring and well, rain, sleet and hail, stream, creek and river. Stone, sand and soil, tree, leaf and root, flower, shrub and grass, forest, heath and mountain, desert, jungle and plain. Wind, sun and cloud, moon, stars and storm, voice, breath and song. Here, in the Cauldron of the Sea mixes the very potion of life, bubbling with all the wonder and awe and enchantment of being.

© Elena Tornberg-Lennox 2023

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The Sea of Mothers

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The Sea Hare