Entranced by katie's nature and soul moving poems that she publishes through her Instagram account (@katieandcrow), I am very pleased that she composed two water-inspired poems for the Wild Swimmer Stories series. Both -the eden that we share- and The Water and Me remind and challenge us to connect with ourselves through nature and to delve into that process of rewilding the self to respect and enjoy the Earth's abundance and gifts. Swim in these poems and imagine yourself flowing down a river feeling the healing powers of nature's embrace. 

take me to the places
that fill me with flowers and paint my insides with primrose and sorrel

show me the mornings
when the river mist ties dew drops to my hair and fills my eyes with promise

bathe me in the waters
that take all of who I am with no judgement, and return me to the land reborn

sing to me the birdsong
of sweet nightingales, and the linnets that bid me join their libertine chorus

dress me in the greenery
of the sweet, soft moss that takes all fear and worry from my brow

feed me the riches
of honeyed nettle flowers, and the cornish gorse that brings hopeful sunshine to my lips

and in return
take of me what you will, that I too may bring some gift of balance to this eden that we share

The water brings everything to a halt.

Within the current of her flow, every ounce of civilisation - the teachings, and the expectations - fall away. All the rules, the lies, the greed and the status vanish, and all that is left is the moment.

The whole world fills in that pause. Senses flooded with the tumble of sparkling rivers, the cascade of the wave or the heady rush of the waterfall. The moss to either side, the stones or the silt underfoot, the trees of the sky overhead.

To strip naked before her gaze, is to feel recognised and welcomed. As if – hidden by clothes - we humans make of ourselves strangers. In allowing ourselves to be seen, we allow the whole of existence to remember who we are.

I meet the water as early as I can with the dawn, as if to hold the experience close to me and take it through the rest of my day. To wake and greet the world this way acts as a reminder of who I truly am, and what it is I strive to be. Without the water, I imagine it is too easy to get pulled into a life that forgets what is important; pulled into depths of a different kind.

Wide open rivers, high sided with trees, or low slung with water meadows and rushes. Narrow nooks and crannies, streams that crash their way down through the rocks of Dartmoor forming shallows between deep pools at the foot of waterfalls.

The ocean with her currents and colours, her mysteries and tides. I love to spend time with them all; just enough water to crouch in, or enough to get lost in.

I've never really felt myself to be a swimmer, for this is not swimming to me. It is a meeting of the elements, and immersion into the powers of the earth that dwarf the powers of man. It is an honouring, a meeting, and a humbling that both brings me to myself as an individual, and brings me into a merging with all of existence.
 

The words are never enough to describe what the open water gifts us, but you see it in the eyes of anyone who takes themselves into the flow. The water offers us the gift of our wildness, the wildness that was stolen from us and hides deep within; fearful to be seen. Just as the water carves and shapes the rocks, she carves and shapes us; pares us down until our true wildness begins to show. In her hold, we remember our wildness and bear it proudly for all to see. This gift of our true nature is beyond measure; and it changes all whom it touches in ways that are not understood, until the listener themselves dares to take off their shoe and place their foot into the swirling current for the first time.

The depths of the water – met with the depths of our hearts – bring us into our knowing. Offer us permission to release into our own current as we feel the strength of hers.

The water brings us to a halt that opens the gates to our flow; her movement around us urging us to release the blocks and the stops, to embrace the fears and reveal ourselves into the very essence of who we are.

The pause in the motion, the self in connection, the still in the current,

The water moves everything to a halt.