Water wombs

I sit by lakes all over the world and stare out in fascination upon them.

Pangong Tso in Ladakh, silenced me. I lost my words. I was electrified and still, together .
The Zurich lake became my friend, my witness and my co creator. She healed me in many ways. I wept with grief to leave her.
The Geneva lake gave me respite from male energy, duty and job.
Lake Naivasha welcomed me and was so familiar. The lake at Kamshet saw me cry, consoled me and tried to absorb some of the impact and turbulence of our times there. The laughter dissipated accross her shores, the tears fell into her and the worry was just a little bit shaken from its fleshy, cerebellous roots. As I eroded by her sides, I started to become the stronger woman I would be four years later.

Now, here I am by Lake Victoria in Mwanza, Tanzania. Looking out onto her. Wondering how she and her sisters accross the planet are connected to me.
Even my safe space for animist journeys contains a lake. A lake that purifies me, quenches my thirst, serves as a mirror, sometimes changes to warn me - blood, creatures, doorways to other realms all lie beneath her surface. So does my heart, when she needs hiding and when too much is being asked of her.
A lake is like a pool of tears upon the face of the planet. Like a prayer bowl played by all the children who live on her shores. At night when they sleep, their prayers and tears meet in the water and the air of the lake. She absolves them in their dreams, she aborbs their shocks and nullifies their anxieties with her ripples and flaura and fauna.
She is a silent deep magician and has witnessed the ancestors of every tribe that now claim her shores. She knows. She is amused. She cries with us.  This alchemy of functions is natural to her. She does not try. The alchemy gave her life so many millions of years ago and she gave it dance and song.

Even when still in my mother s womb I was stranded with her and my father and their friends on Lake Nakuru not far from here. Victoria, Naivasha and Nakuru are geographical cousins.
I wonder if I was a water spirit that lived in Nakuru and when I saw my mother and sensed that she herself was a deep lake I decided to hop in and give the human realm a try.

That would make alot of sense. My lake mother - I am so unlike her. And sometimes I am just like her.
Maybe, it all started on that lake not far from here. This life of mine.

I wonder - what is my purpose ? At thirty five this human manifest spirit wants to know if any spirit will choose her as mother. Is there anyone who wants to be born through me?

The world seems to be at war with wombs. And at war with these water wombs - lakes too. In Bangalore we have raped and annihilated some of our lakes.
Pangongso has an invisible line through it. This side is Indian, that Chinese. If you dare cross, bullets may rain. We now draw lines even accross water surfaces and the commitment to our fictions is so great that even warring sides agree a line exists though they may debate upon its exact location.

Soldiers are the keepers of this tranquil blue haven, Pangong Tso, a haven for beings we can only see in our dreams. 

If all the tales of warriors and wombs were to come rolling down from the mountain tops where they were banished to, the Earth would let out a cry and swallow up all her lake daughters. The Earth has swallowed up her daughters before, in epics and in the news.

Sometimes I think these daughters are floating around at the bottom of my Lake muses and lake mothers. And they are what keeps me riveted to the side of the lake. Calling calling calling to me and all who will listen.

Even the manmade lake at Singapore had acquired a distinct song of her own. 

The sun transports Lake tears to the sea. And in the deepest parts of the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean our break ups, exam stress, generational humiliations, job related troubles,. pains, traumas and existential woes are rained.
She does everything she can, grandmother ocean to sort out some of our manifest mess.

Lakes cradle us and then report to her. And she in her timeless wisdom and yearning pours out her love in the form of tsunamis and storms and cyclones and hurricanes... everything she can to come again into balance. To bring us into balance.
And so here I am. Watching the sky darken over Victoria. I can hear her whisper - "that's not really my name".

It reminds me to remember remember remember who I am.