It’s a Full Moon, my monthly deep dive on a theme along with 7 sensory recommendations to further explore that topic. I’ve also included an audio recording of the essay (up top).
Water is my happy place. It’s where I let go of my thoughts and reconnect with my body. It’s where I can abandon the weight of gravity and feel a sense of levity. It’s the only place where I can both be held and be free.
My love for water started very early, despite the fact that I don’t come from a “water family.” I never saw my father swim and my mother is terrified of water. She’s now in her mid 70s and has recently attended a weekend workshop to help her face her fear, but it’s a deep phobia that’s hard to overcome.
I’m the opposite: water is where I feel most comfortable. Perhaps it’s due to my astrological sign (Pisces), but whenever I see a pool, lake, or ocean, I have to go in. The excitement overtakes my body, and as soon as I jump in I feel an all-encompassing sense of peace.
I’m not a particularly good swimmer – I never learned any technique but adopted an intuitive puppy-paddling approach as a child. But when I’m in water, I feel like I’m finally returning to my natural state. The rest of the time, when on land, I’m like a fish out of water.
Even though I love being submerged in water, I don’t like being on it. I tend to get sea-sick so I avoid boats. The combination of the hard surface of a ship plus the unstable foundation of the sea doesn’t work for me. It’s like trying to enjoy a continuous earthquake.
When I’m in water, I feel like I’m finally returning to my natural state
Of course, being in water doesn’t come without its fair share of dangers. My relationship to water changed a decade ago after an incident at sea. I was swimming with a friend, when we both got caught in a rip tide. We kept getting pulled further away from shore, and knocked under water with each coming wave. It was one of the few moments in my life where I thought I wouldn’t make it.
Miraculously, my friend and I managed to make it back to the beach, crawling onto the safety of the sand, gasping for air. The experience left an emotional scar, a distrust for the sea, and instilled a new fear of waves. Whenever I go to the beach now, I tend to watch the ocean suspiciously from the shore. Especially here in California where the Pacific is a playground for surfers, but not as friendly to swimmers.
Facing the ocean’s dangers demands counter-logic. Swimming straight to shore may seem like a reasonable solution, when in fact going sideways is often a better tactique. When a wave approaches, our brain desperately tells us to stay above water, but the wisest thing to do is to dive under the wave. Far below the tumultuous surface is where safety can be found.
Depths can be scary, but they can also be spaces of serenity. The first time I went scuba-diving, I couldn’t believe how quiet the ocean was. It was the calmest place I had ever visited. All our senses soften in water.
Far below the tumultuous surface is where safety can be found.
I think being in water must unconsciously remind us of our pre-birth, when we were floating in our mother’s womb. I imagine that those earliest times gave us a sense of safety, when sounds were muffled and light was diffused, when we had yet to be exposed to the harshness of the outside world.
Perhaps this is what we seek to return to anytime we immerse ourselves in a body of water – a lost remembrance of our first home.
For this month’s Full Moon, I offer you seven creative ways to explore water through our senses – SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TASTE, TOUCH, BALANCE, and ENVISION.
In Joy,
Sabrina
“if the ocean can calm itself, so can you.
we are both salt water mixed with air.”
― Nayyirah Waheed
SEE
Seven Water Artworks | Bill Viola
If there’s one artist that I associate with water, it’s the late Bill Viola. This recurring water theme is most likely linked to an early childhood memory, when Viola almost drowned in a lake on a family vacation. Even though the moment may have been terrifying, the prevailing memory was not fear but rather the beauty and harmony of the underwater vision, the lights and colours.
It was hard to select which art piece to feature as water is such a central element to Viola’s work, so here are seven examples:
The Reflecting Pool (1977-79) is one of the earliest examples I could find, where a man’s water reflection disappears when he jumps in.
The Messenger (1996): a video installation where a naked figure floats up through dark water, gasps for air as he breaks the surface, and sinks back down.
Nine Attempts to Achieve Immortality (1996): a similar idea as The Messenger but this time it’s a closeup video portrait of Viola holding his breath, nine times, as long as he possibly can.
The Crossing (1996), in which a man is engulfed by flames burning from below and, on the other side of a freestanding screen, is obliterated by a deluge of water falling from above.
Ocean Without a Shore (2007, presented at the Venice Biennale) was inspired by a line from the 13th-century Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi: ‘The self is an ocean without a shore. Gazing upon it has no beginning or end, in this world and the next.’
The Dreamers (2013), seven plasma screens showing people seemingly asleep underwater, lying on a riverbed.
The Raft (2019-2020): An immersive slow-motion video of a group of people casually standing together, until they are struck by strong blasts of water. In the aftermath, the victims huddle together, seek protection, and help those who have fallen – an experience “depicting human calamity and shared humanity, provoking a consideration of the range of responses to crisis.”
HEAR
Aquasonic | Underwater Music Band
AquaSonic is a Danish band that performs entirely underwater, making them the first and only band to do so. They’ve been developing their unique underwater music since 2006.
It took a long time for the musicians, who worked closely with researchers and inventors, to develop instruments that could produce ideal sound for underwater acoustics. Each artist plays in a separate aquarium, and microphones and instruments have to be placed at a very specific designated spot. The water also has to be at a certain temperature to guarantee the desired pitch.
The musicians don’t wear oxygen tanks. Instead, they train with deep-sea divers and yoga instructors to prepare for the concerts. The music composition indicated when to come up for air.
According to Time, “Laila Skovmand, the artistic director, composer and vocalist, hopes to draw people closer to nature by reminding them of their affinity with water.” Her goal is to “get human beings more attached to nature. Water is part of that.”
SMELL
Calone | Scent Compound
In the 1960s, researchers developed a scent compound – Calone – that smells exactly like water. Originally, they were trying to emulate the scent of watermelon, but they accidentally created something completely different: something that smells closer to algae. Apparently, when people test pure Calone, they report that it starts out "like a fresh melon scent” and then settles into “water pouring out of a faucet.” It is the closest compound to an aquatic scent.
TASTE
Underwater restaurants
I’ve never had the chance to have this culinary experience, but there are a number of “under water’ restaurants around the world. One of the largest ones — 5.8 Undersea Restaurant — is made of all-glass and located 5.8 meters below the surface in the Maldives. There are other underwater restaurants located in Dubai, South Africa, and the first one in Europe opened in 2019 (the “Under” in Norway).
TOUCH
Deep Sea | Ocean website
Available online
I’m not usually one to recommend spending time on our screens, but if you’re going to scroll, then I highly recommend this fascinating ocean website. I learned about it a couple years ago, thanks to
.It showcases the diverse creatures that live at various depths in the ocean. The more you scroll, the deeper you get into the ocean, learning various facts about the ocean along the way. Once you reach 6,000 meters below, you get to the “hadal zone.” According to the site, “more people have been to the Moon than the Hadal Zone.”
The deeper one goes, the stranger the ocean life becomes – resembling sci-fi creatures. Like me, you might be curious which ones live at the deepest depths of the ocean - I’ll let you scroll and find out.
BALANCE
Underwater Dance | performance by Julie Gautier
I originally discovered the work of dancer Julie Gautier when I was working with dancer/choreographer J’aime Morrison (who founded “Mourning Surf.”). At the time, I was researching a lot of artists working at the intersection of dance, water and somatic movement – which is how I stumbled upon Julie Gautier’s work.
In this video, she dives deep into the underwater world in Playa del Carmen in Mexico to create this meditative performance.
ENVISION
Ocean Memory Project
More info online
I recently discovered the Ocean Memory Project, a fascinating concept which was born almost a decade ago at a conference dedicated to the deep ocean at the National Academies of Science, Medicine and Engineering. Researchers who gathered there asked themselves: “Does the ocean have memory, and if so, what form does it take?”
They've since been gathering scientists, artists and people from diverse backgrounds and cultures to explore and develop this question through a trans-disciplinary lens.
Last year they funded an exhibit at the Institute for Art and Olfaction, called ‘Scents and Sonics of The Ocean: Multisensorial traces of lost and recovered memories of Sapelo Island,’ which included a perfumer, a sound artist, and a team of scientists to explore the sounds and scents of coastal Sapelo Island.
I share your love of being in the water—I don't think I'm ever happier and more at peace than when I'm swimming, and I wish that there were fewer rip tides and sharks where I am so that I could swim more in the ocean! Your tip on swimming sideways instead of straight to shore is applicable to many things, I think.
Honestly, all the videos in this post were awesome. I had heard of Aquasonic before, loved them. Watched an interview where they basically just complained about how hard it is to play instruments and sing underwater and thought that was hilarious. Fun stuff!