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I met Sarah at the weekly Farmers’ Market where she had a stall selling her home-grown organic vegetables and cut flowers. A small, hand-painted sign informed me that she also offered her services as a dowser for water. To me she represented the quintessential “hippy-chick” with her filthy feet bare, despite the cold, her eclectic layers of colourful clothing and her wild, long hair sporting several tiny plaits, threaded through with wild flowers, bright ribbons and feathers. She exuded a vivid energy, abundant vitality and an aura of irrepressible joy.
I found it impossible not to engage her in conversation. “Wow, you certainly are an excellent advertisement for the benefits of your products,” I remarked, “I have rarely encountered anyone so disgustingly healthy-looking!”
“Yes, it’s true, I am blessed with a lot of energy and very good health,” she effused, “But it certainly wasn’t always the case. Just two years ago I was a completely different person.”
“How so?” I enquired, sensing the possibility of an interesting story.
“Well, I’m due for a break anyway,” she said, as she winked at her co-worker, “How about you buy me a veggie juice in exchange for a story?” Well, how could I possibly refuse such an enticing offer, especially one made by so charming a young lady! Minutes later we were comfortably ensconced on a couple of logs under the shade of a massive, overhanging oak tree; me nursing a steaming mug of cappuccino and her sipping at a paper cup of disgusting-looking, green goop. This, then, is Sarah’s story.
***
Sarah’s parents had both been in their forties when Sarah was born and it was clear from the start that she would always be an only child. Sarah’s father was a Professor of mathematics and her mother the Chief Librarian in the university medical library and consequently Sarah grew up in a quiet, subdued and bookish environment in which she was related to as a small adult and encouraged to engage in indoor pursuits such as reading, chess and research, rather than sport or social activities. As a result, she grew up rather quiet and shy and, although she was academically and intellectually advanced, her social skills were sadly underdeveloped.
Upon leaving school, Sarah decided to study accounting at university, a decision of which her parents wholeheartedly approved, viewing it as a dignified and respectable career which would provide their daughter with ample means of supporting herself. As a day student at the university for which her parents worked and, electing to stay at home in order to save money, Sarah chose not to participate in the varied social activities on offer to a first-year student. She experienced her fellow students to be incomprehensibly infantile and their company puerile at best. Sarah vastly preferred to spend her time studying, reading or taking solitary walks or runs in the park. Sometimes, though, in the quiet privacy of her own heart, she did experience a small, wistful pang of yearning and regret when she observed other students laughing and horsing around. And, every now and then, on yet another Saturday evening spent playing chess with her father or reading aloud to her mother from some worthy tome, she would feel just the smallest stab of dissatisfaction, loneliness and a desire for something, well… more.
One crisp autumn morning, as Sarah sprinted up the final incline in her regular circuit around the lake, she noticed a young man with rather attractive legs ahead of her and, giving way to her well-developed competitive streak, Sarah picked up her pace and steamed up the hill to reach the top ahead of the young man, thereby inadvertently providing him with a glorious view of her own shapely legs, outlined in form-fitting yoga pants, as she did so. At the top of the hill, Sarah focused on performing her usual series of stretches which, had she but been aware of the fact, were perfectly designed to showcase her supple and slender young body to its very best advantage.
“In training, are you?” a smooth, masculine voice interrupted her reverie, causing Sarah to start and yelp with surprise, whipping around to find herself staring into the most meltingly gorgeous, deepest-chocolate-brown eyes she had ever encountered.
“Training? What? Oh, no, um… it’s just my time to um… think and prepare for my studies,” she responded, mentally kicking herself for her verbal clumsiness, but noticing as she did so the way his dark hair curled so enticingly around his gorgeous ears and the dimple that appeared in his left cheek as he smiled at her and… Sarah was instantly, irrevocably and disastrously smitten! Nothing in her quiet and modest eighteen years of life had prepared her for the beauty, for what she considered to be, the sheer perfection of this magnificent man.
What followed was, from Sarah’s rather naive viewpoint, the romance of a lifetime. She surrendered herself, body, mind and soul to Matt, and he became the focal point and the centre of her life. She neglected her studies so as to spend every moment accommodating herself to Matt’s whims and fitting in with his rather erratic schedule of class attendance. She would lie awake for hours just watching him sleep, quietly sighing at the pleasure of being able to study his gorgeous face for as long as she pleased without him being aware of it. But alas, as Sarah was shortly to discover, Matt was not quite as committed to her as she was to him.
What followed was a story as old as time, but for Sarah, the betrayal and loss of her first real love were completely devastating. When she inadvertently walked in on Matt and Lily, a pretty and popular second-year student, “doing the dirty” in Matt’s dorm room, she felt as if she had been dealt a sharp punch to the solar plexus and, even months later, would still feel as if she were unable to breathe properly. Like a wounded animal, Sarah bolted straight home from Matt’s dorm room and closeted herself in her room for two weeks. Two weeks in which her parents were unable to console her or even really connect with their daughter at all. Two weeks in which she hardly ate or bathed and remained in her bed with the covers over her head, emerging only intermittently to play Matt’s favourite music and bawl her eyes out in a little wet heap on the couch before returning, once more, to bed.
The girl who finally emerged from that room and resumed her studies bore very little resemblance to the Sarah of old. Pale and extremely thin, the light had left her eyes and she was subsequently very rarely seen to smile. There was something dried-out and insubstantial about her, as if all of her life essence, joy and vitality had been wrung out of her. She appeared to be in danger of drifting away on the lightest of breezes. She gave up running in the park and used some of her savings to purchase a treadmill, upon which she exercised every morning. It simply felt safer to be at home than out in the world. Sarah stopped socialising altogether, dividing her time between her classes, the library and her parents’ home and single-mindedly threw herself into her studies. As a result, she graduated top of her class three years later, which enabled her to secure an entry-level position in a top firm of chartered accountants, which undertook to pay for Sarah’s post-graduate studies and offered her in-service training.
Hard work, native intelligence and dedication to the interests of the business fast-tracked Sarah’s career and at the age of thirty-five she was called into a board meeting, at which she was offered a partnership in the firm. As Sarah stood up to leave the boardroom, the principle partner laid a hand upon her shoulder and said, “Sarah, as a partner you will need to provide leadership and direction to the more junior members of staff and you will also be required to attend various social and networking events. We cannot fault your work ethic, your intelligence and skills, or your dedication to the firm, but you need to work on your people skills and you also need to spend some time socialising with the team. The Board would strongly recommend that you join in some of the work sporting activities and teams in order to start building relationships with your colleagues outside of working hours. I know that you’re a keen runner, so how about you joining the running team and then, the hiking club might be a good idea too.” Of course, Sarah was aware that she hadn’t spent any time getting to know her colleagues outside of the work environment, as she was completely disinclined towards social interaction. But she really wanted that partnership and equally really wanted to be favourably viewed by her colleagues and so she agreed to join both the hiking club and the running team.
And so it was that Sarah found herself on a five-day hike in the Knysna forests with a group of her work colleagues during the following December work break. On the second day of the hike Sarah had an experience that would dramatically alter the course of her life.
The team had been hiking since dawn, the trail alternately leading them along isolated pebbly beaches or upwards into dense coastal forest, but always following the breathtaking coastline to their final destination, three days hence. Toward late afternoon, tired and thirsty, their weary muscles aching for a respite, the hikers happened upon an exquisite freshwater pool in the higher forest, surrounded by massive tree ferns, water trickling down from a rocky, moss-covered ledge a few metres above. After consultation of their maps, they realised, with considerable gratitude, that their rest camp for the night was now only two kilometres away. The rest of the party elected to push on to the camp, with the intention of returning to the pool once they had dropped off their backpacks and rested a while. Sarah, however, decided to stay there to bathe her weary body before embarking upon the final two kilometre stretch to the camp. Although she had enjoyed the physical challenge of the hike and the beauty of the forests, she had been finding the first two days of the hike a bit of a strain, as there appeared to be no respite from the constant chatter and intrusion of her colleagues upon her private thoughts. She simply wasn’t accustomed to spending so much time with other people and she relished the thought of an uninterrupted hour or two of solitude and the opportunity for silent contemplation of the magnificent natural beauty she had witnessed thus far on the trail.
Once her companions had left and, knowing that they had been the final group on the hike and that she would not be disturbed by any unwelcome intruders, Sarah quickly stripped off all her sweaty clothing and plunged into the icy-cold, crystal clear, sun-dappled water. As she twisted and tumbled, quenching her thirst by simply submerging her mouth in the water, Sarah felt the weariness of the day’s hike leaving her body and a delightful feeling of peace and serenity settled over her. She allowed her mind to drift as her body floated in the water, feeling the warmth of the late-afternoon sun on her face and idly listening to the melodic calls of the birds in the trees above.
Gradually she became aware that the water beneath her was heating up, and tiny eddies, as well as stronger currents of warmer water began subtly massaging the aches and pains out of her tired arms, legs and back. Sarah sighed with bliss without giving much thought to what was happening, other than entertaining a vague idea that perhaps parts of the pool had been heated by the sun earlier in the day. Then a series of bubble streams started to tickle her body, which rapidly focused Sarah’s mind on her surroundings. Opening her eyes, Sarah noticed that the air had taken on a magnificent liquid golden hue with sparkling dust motes dancing in the beams of light upon the water.
Just a few metres away, a sudden flash of bright blue light sparked above the surface of the water and then disappeared again into the pool. At the same moment Sarah realised that she no longer had to paddle to keep herself afloat in the water – she was being held by a soft, warm embrace of water! Her mind struggling to come up with logical explanations for this phenomenon, Sarah tried to swim back to the edge of the pool, only to discover that her arms and legs were unable to move, but gently swayed back-and-forth in the warm currents of water. She struggled for a moment or two in panic before a soft susurration in her ears gently and inexplicably calmed her down. Although no recognisable words were actually spoken, she understood the meaning: “Don’t be afraid, you’re completely safe. Just relax and enjoy.” Sarah felt a deep sense of well-being flood her body and then the little bubbles began caressing her skin again, sending corresponding shivers of delight through her body and mind.
Again she heard the sound in her ears, “Did you know that most of your own body is composed of water? We are more alike than you realise!” Now, as the water currents continued to gently massage and relax her body, she felt an answering call from deep within her own being. Gradually, awareness dawned that the water molecules in her own body were answering the call of the watery creature, which had her enthralled. The water within the cells of her body were responding to the siren call of the water molecules in the pool and were gradually awakening and rehydrating and plumping up with energy and life. Although Sarah’s mind informed her that it was impossible, she felt the water surrounding her begin seeping into her body, gradually restoring her lifeless, dried-out being to abundant lushness of life for the first time in years. She felt a surge of power and vitality and then vivid images of magnificent natural beauty began to fill her mind. The images grew ever more real, combining with the increasingly powerful bodily sensations in transporting her to an unimaginable realm of majesty and wonder.
She experienced the indescribable thrill of being the mighty waves crashing upon the shoreline. She felt the ecstatic wonder of transitioning from water to vapour and creating massive cloud banks that released deluges of water upon the thirsty Earth. She experienced the mystery of being absorbed by plants and being incorporated into plant tissues, only to be consumed by animals and then humans and then being re-released into the soil upon the death and dissolution of fleshly bodies. Then, all the images coalesced and she became the entire, magnificent, ecstatic water cycle all at once and she realised that she was indeed both a part of the whole and also the whole at the very same time and she whooped with pleasure and howled with joy at the ecstasy and the wonder and the mystery and the miracle of it all.
After what seemed like eons of time, Sarah gradually became aware that the water was cooling and that she needed once more to paddle to keep herself afloat. At the same moment, she heard voices in the distance and she hastened to the edge of the pool to rapidly dry off and dress herself. She had no desire to try and make normal conversation with her companions, so she slipped away into the forest before they re-appeared at the pool. There was no explaining what had happened to her but she knew that some deep thirst within her had been quenched for the very first time in her life.
Enthralled at the story that Sarah had just related to me, I asked her whether she had any theories as what had actually happened to her that day in the pool. “My being was rehydrated,” she said, “I was re-infused with life and joy and pleasure and I was reminded of my connection to all that is. I realised that I wasn’t alone at all; I was a part of something much bigger. It gave me a sense of meaning and purpose in my life and somehow the hurt that I had been carrying for all those years was dissolved and carried away by the water. I realised that I needed to live my life, rather than simply existing and so I made a few changes!”
It transpired that the latter was a monumental understatement! Upon returning to the city at the end of her vacation, Sarah relinquished her precious partnership, resigned her job and liquidated all of her considerable assets. Within a few months, she moved to Knysna where she purchased a smallholding in an eco village and began growing organic vegetables and indigenous flowers. She also discovered that she had an uncanny talent for finding water on any property and so she began to offer her dowsing services to property developers and home owners. Somehow her experience with the water spirit had increased her sensitivity to the presence of water. This was to become her main means of supporting herself.
***
“But, Sarah, who or what do you think you encountered in that pool in the forest? Do you have any theories?” I asked, feeling somehow dissatisfied with the abrupt ending to the story.
“I don’t suppose I’ll ever know for sure; perhaps some kind of elemental water spirit or perhaps even the spirit of the forest itself,” said Sarah, smiling and shrugging her shoulders. “But somehow it allowed me to find my connection to the flow of life, to the rhythms of the forest and to myself, most of all. I’m certain that my supernatural experience in the water is what has allowed me to become such a successful water dowser – I’m able to connect with the water of life, wherever it may be found. I’m rejuvenated, revitalised and rehydrated. And life is so good!”
Well, this was very clear just from looking at Sarah and, as I left her that day, I wondered if I had time to pay the forest pool a quick visit myself…