Fountain of Myth

Front Yard Project

Yesterday I went on a mission to create a sacred space in my front yard. There was a small retention pond outside our front steps that didn’t really hold water but it was the right place to create a deeper pool that would. While holding the idea of a pool of water I became fascinated with an image of a dark stark tub surrounded by rounded rocks, topped with quartzite stepping stones with two fountain figures on each end of the pool. I already had a large spitting frog which reminded me of a segment in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces in which Campbell delves into the symbolism of the classic tale “The Frog King”…I’ll go a little further into this later.

Motivated by this image I went to our local hardware store to purchase a tub and a few other necessary supplies. While inspecting the tubs I noticed a Koi fish fountain. It had no price tag so I inquired about it. I knew if it was less than $60.00 that I would buy it. The sales person could not find a price but took my name and number down with the intent of calling me when she had tracked it down. I located the rest of the items I needed and left the store. Halfway through digging the hole for the tub my husband interrupted me to take a call from the hardware store. The Koi fish fountain was $51.00, I asked them to hold it for me until I was at a stopping point and could return to the store. They complied.

I returned to the store after I was finished installing the tub. I needed to bring back an unused bag of sand and purchase a few more stepping stones. When I got to the register to pick up the fish I held it in my hands for a few minutes. Scenes from the BBC production Walking with Monsters flashed through my mind and I was reminded of our earliest relatives swimming in ancient seas…the symbolism would not have been more perfect if I had actively hunted this piece down but instead it came to me with ease.

When I returned home I set the pond up the rest of the way, designing the call to adventure that this bubbling spring would signify.

For those of you who are familiar with The Frog Prince you know that the princess loses her golden ball in a bubbling spring located under an old lime tree in a great dark forest. A frog agrees to retrieve it for her in return for her companionship…she agrees to this arrangement and thus her call to adventure begins.

Mystics term it “the awakening of the self”, whether great or small and no matter what the stage or grade of life, the call always signifies a mystery of transfiguration (a rite or moment of spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a birth and death).

This is the time when the familiar is outgrown, the ideals, beliefs and old patterns no longer fit and the time for passing a threshold is at hand. All such calls need a carrier to the power of destiny…typically represented by a snake, frog, dragon or some other old and primal creature that lives in dark, unchartered waters, caves or the very belly of the earth.

Such creatures are familiar with the ways of the unconscious deep in which are hoarded all the rejected, un-admitted, unrecognized, unknown, undeveloped factors, laws and elements of existence and therefore they are superior guides offering their assistance through perils toward unimaginable treasure guiding a psyche that is ripe for transformation through this spiritual passage.

I am fascinated by this imagery and how it has held the power to touch humans at deep level for thousands of years…the symbolism of nature is hardwired to all that is primal within us, calling us out on a journey to recognize the illusion of separation that is the heart of our suffering…this change of perspective turns foe into friend and suffering into joy…so it was fun to create something that would act to remind me of one of my favorite meditations

Comments

By Vera Nadine on May 20th, 2007 at 6:56 pm

Fantabulous Paula! I’m inspired now to get out and work in my own yard!

If only this rain would stop.

VERY BEAUTIFUL! VERY ZEN.

Blessings,
Vera Nadine

By Paula Kawal on May 21st, 2007 at 10:40 am

It’s been raining here too ~

The day I put the fountain in was fun though because I was really working hard digging the hole so when the rain showers would come it was like a little blessing

I remember the Spring rains when I lived in CT. Are you having any thunderstorms yet? I used to love watching them from our screened in porch of my Grandmother’s house when we lived in Stamford.