The Undine Pathworking

You enter the beautiful woodland on a fine midsummer’s day. As you do so, you hear a lovely woman’s voice singing in the distance and you are instantly drawn to it. You begin to follow the woodland pathway in the direction of the entrancing singing. The song sounds joyous and full of feeling and you have never before heard a voice so exquisite. You long to find out whose it is.

As you make your way along the footpath, all sound seems to be accentuated. You notice the birdsong more than ever before, the rustle of the breeze among the trees and the bees buzzing among the wild flowers. You pass the clearing where you sat with the sylph butterfly and continue on your journey. All the time the voice seems to be getting louder and you believe that you must be getting nearer to the singer.

Quite suddenly you turn a corner and find yourself beside a still pool. The water seems cool and inviting, and you realize that the singing has faded away. You sit down beside the woodland pool. There are dragonflies skimming the surface of the water, their shimmering bodies catching rays of sunlight. You take your shoes off to feel the cool damp moss beneath your feet and it is a pleasant experience.

A dragonfly skims very close to your feet, which makes you look up. You immediately notice a very beautiful young woman sitting on the opposite side of the pool. She could almost be human, but there is something a little fey about her. So striking is this feeling that you feel honoured to be able to see her. She sits on the wet moss as you do, but she is naked, with a pale slender body, almost tapered at the ends. Her hair is the most amazing sight, for it is black, wavy and luxuriant and reaches down to her knees, draping most of her body. A little frog sits beside her. She seems to be talking to him and he seems to be listening. You do not think that she has noticed you until she looks up from her tete a tete with the frog and gives you a little smile. She then slips effortlessly into the water and disappears, apart from her hair, which splays out on the surface of the water. You reach out to try and touch a thread of it and feel water weed slipping through you fingers. With faerie glamour, she has become her element.

Feeling as if you have witnessed a very special faerie, you leave the poolside and retrace your steps to the pathway. As you walk back along the footpath you begin to notice things that you don’t think were there before: little coloured orbs of light in the trees, spiders’ webs glistening in the sun and a feeling of the consciousness and interconnectedness of nature.

After a magickal walk you reach the end of the pathway and emerge into the sunshine, bringing an end to your Pathworking.

Meditation: Contacting the Undines

A young woman with long dark hair is sitting by the loveliest well she has ever come by. In fact she comes here whenever she can get away. If you could see the well, you would know why. It is in a lonely lush woodland and is made from stones, now covered in moss and lichen. The young woman is not the only one to have discovered the well, for it is believed to be a sacred place, associated with the goddess. Today around the walls, visitors have placed sprigs of primrose, feathers, stones, seashells, bunches of herbs and ribbons, all in honour of the goddess and the spirit of the well.

The young woman does not know why she is drawn here and why she feels a sense of peace when she visits. She could not tell you the reason why she has come here on a drizzly day, the air smelling of wet ferns and damp moss. As she sits beside the well she places her own bunch of primroses with the other offerings. She takes a deep breath and instantly feels at peace with her verdant surroundings and in turn with her inner self. She feels the breeze running through her waist-length hair and thinks for a split-second that she hears a woman singing on that breeze. She wonders if someone else is coming to visit the well. She listens for the singing again, but only hears the sounds of the woodland. She drops a primrose petal into the well water and watches the ripples spread across the sun-speckled water. When the ripples have ebbed away she looks down at her own reflection.

In the well water she sees a beautiful young woman with waist-length dark hair. She smiles when she smiles, she blinks when she blinks, so she thinks it must be her reflection. And yet there is something different today. She drops another petal into the water and the reflection ripples. She whispers her goodbyes to the well and starts to make her way back home, down the public footpath. She ponders on her reflection, not knowing why she is dwelling upon the image. Until she realizes one thing: her undine reflection was naked, whereas she had peered into the well fully clothed. The reflection could not have been her.