On Waterbending

ISSUE #122

For those watching Avatar and The Legend of Korra—both of which I've finished for the first time—here is a playlist series on bending earth, fire, air, and water. It should be said to the skeptics that these are not inalterable divisions, these four primal states of being, but inventories that show us the tools we have available and how we can best employ them. Four faces of the universe that help us witness ourselves.

The tide—the slow breathing of the Earth.

Breathe in and the sea contracts. Breathe out and the waves will swell. Our lungs move on behalf of our brains, but the ocean takes orders from the glowing moon. The celestial champion of love.

"Legends say the moon was the first waterbender. Our ancestors saw how it pushed and pulled the tides and learned how to do it themselves." Sokka learns this all from Princess Yue, before losing her to her act of sacrifice. Push and pull—the motions of change. The sea and the moon—Queens of Mystery.

The moon is as bound to her phases as water. She surprises us, appearing in new places, a new form every night. Sometimes she comes by even in day, like a lover coming home early from work. Consistent enough to keep the Earth comfortable, fluid enough to keep the spark alive, massaging the sea to form the shoreline, she's both a healer and hypnotist—the waves are her gift to all life on Earth.

In the same body, the ocean holds change and tenacity. A mass that's never still, but never leaving—a boundless, shimmering, luminous dream. It's only on diving beneath the surface that you see turmoil is protecting stillness. This is the peace of the beginning of life. We were formed in water amniotic, nurtured and protected from the hostile Earth. All life was formed here, even the weakest—you can thrive here with no shell at all.

Change itself was built into life, and now we are suffused with it. We grow and wither with the cycle of seasons. Four times a year we're shaken, act differently. Three months that repeat an ascension, peace, decline. These changes have stirred us to seek out adventure, set sail with our thoughts that bear music and art to the shores of far-off nations. Ripples flow outward from every dropped pebble.

Waterbending's greatest strength lies in versatility. Iroh says, "The people of the water tribe are capable of adapting to many things." They respond to their environment by redirecting its energy—but the price of change can be loss of definition.

"Our strength comes from the Spirit of the Moon, our life comes from the Spirit of the Ocean. They work together to keep balance." Princess Yue says just before she transforms, a change that will last forever.

Presence is our only tether at the brink of the absolute.

Love withers, homes are lost, all vanity and pretense ripped away. All that remains are the feelings of each moment. Tears carry thoughts from places they could hurt. Another self shed with each bead of sweat.

We feel things in waves, call them tides of emotion. When life is changing course, all you can do is feel. This is water's primary function. Surrendering to circumstance is like floating on Mother Ocean with only emotion as our guide.

To swim is to feel the mind of the world. The sea is clouded and brooding—all that is felt but can never be known. Note the pulse, the gentle swell. Changing position is easy underwater. It supports. We are fluid. The harder task is diving deep. Taking the plunge into our innermost self. It's scary, and often we cling instead to driftwood. We're terrified of drowning. On what painful shores might we finally wash up?

Diving has always been dangerous. The pressure would crush our bathyspheres of ego. Underneath the still tension of your surface could be truths that shatter illusion. You may find jealousy instead of drive, a core of petty meanness or unwavering cowardice. Even so, the sea is diverse. There is love here, unconditional, and beings of extreme vulnerability. The protective shell of self we keep is meant to protect us from pressure, but here there are creatures which have simply outgrown them.

This is how waterbenders become fluent in emotion. Understand personality is fluid, it's pulsing with grace, and you'll be in concert with those around, no matter the situation. The waterbender eschews jealousy, knowing fortunes ebb and flow—some will find land at sixteen and others at sixty. They redirect spite to compassion, competition to care. Our selves are but ships, bobbing on seas of consciousness.

This is how they master their energy—control the flow of feeling to reorient the mind. Their focus lies in symbiosis. Choose not to resist and never avoid, instead guiding, conducting, and harmonizing. The instruments are wisdom, forgiveness, understanding.

For those always changing, then what is transcendence? It couldn't be death—that itself is but change. No, it's a redirect, the channeling of perception: we are working to change our minds.

Onward and upward, to heavens we rise. Enlightened selves evaporate, reform closer to the moon.

A final note on the existence of Avatars:

The temptation to trap ourselves into thinking we can only be one thing is enormous. It is wrong. If we do, we lose dimensions to ourselves, demolishing rooms where we might grow. No one person is one type of element. Identity is performed, not ingrained. Each of us contains all four; they all just await the right trigger. There are problems that demand the drive of fire with the guiding hands of water. There are some that need air's flexibility to weave with earth's strength of will. We are not benders; instead, we bend.

"It is the combination of the four elements in one person that makes the Avatar so powerful," says Iroh, of course, to Zuko. To Zuko, the firebender who masters one of waterbending's greatest acts—he changes. "It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If we take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others—the other elements and the other nations—will help you become whole."