June 21, 2021
The Seven Nations
Shoka/Stone
Kata/Fire
Loma/Water
Arrai/Air
Prana/Plants
Asharaji/Creatures
Asha/Earth
Loma holds the energy of navigating the fluid and changing unknown. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when wandering through the cultural myths and legends of Water, that fear is a huge dynamic in those stories. Dragons and sea monsters abound as the vast oceans are considered places of great peril. Water deities are dangerous and vengeful. Not exactly stories of grace.
And so I turn to Ireland where I know the stories hold a different energy.
If we knew the Fire Worshippers better we might find that their centuries of pious observance have been rewarded, and that the fire has given them a little of its nature;
and I am certain that the water of the seas and of the lakes and of mist and rain,
has all but made the Irish after its image. W.B. Yeats, 1902
Inundated to the point of being saturated and perhaps even soggy, Ireland has a lot of rain. She also has countless lakes, streams, and rivers and as an island she is surrounded by water. Where water meets the land, there is a liminality present and for the Irish there is no more liminal place than a well. There are approximately 3,000 holy wells in Ireland, more than any other country in the world, although at one time every well was considered sacred so that number could be higher.
In working with the energies of Loma and the wells, there was always a sacred pattern to the engagement, ways of walking around the well and offering gratitude. Each well holds its own unique cure and healing properties. And of course from these profound attributes and connections, the wells became the stuff of story and legend and mystery.
Tober-na-Dara (the well of tears) was so called because it overflowed one time for a mile round, from the tears of the Irish wives and mothers who came there to weep for their fallen kindred, who had been slain in a battle, fighting against Cromwell’s troopers of the English army. Lady Wilde, 1919
There is a place on the shore of Scatter Island where, according to the most ancient tradition, a sacred well once existed, with miraculous curative powers. But no one could every discover the place, for at high water the sea covered every point up to the edge of the land, and the shifting sand made all efforts to find the locality of the well vain and fruitless.
But one day a young man who was lame in both legs from the effects of a fall, and much disabled in consequence, was going along the shore with some companions, when he suddenly sank up to his waist in the sand. With much difficulty, and after a long while, his comrades managed to haul him up, when to their amazement they found that his pages were now quite straight, and he stood up before them four inches taller than before he sank down into the sand.
So at once they knew it was the sacred well must have worked the cure, and they dug and dug and cleared away the sand, till at last them came on some ancient steps, and down below lay the well, clear and fresh, and untouched by the salt of the sea.
Now there was great rejoicing in the country when the news spread; and all the people from far and near who hd pains and ailments rushed off to the well and drank of the waters and poured libations of it over their persons, wherever the pain or the disease lay, and in a short time wonderful cures were effected. So the next day still greater crowds arrived to try their good luck. But when they came to the place, no a vestige of the well could be found. The sand and the sea had covered all, and from that day to this the well has never been seen by mortal eyes. Lady Wilde, 1919
Loma. Water. Sacred blood of Earth Mother. We are woven. We are one.
Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com
Note: Mukanda Dawe is an ascended master and one of my spiritual teachers. These are his teachings. The Shakti Tao book that holds these teachings and insights to a practice of connecting with the Nations is available online.