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Every August from infancy on, I’ve been carried or made my way to a quiet beach on the Maine coast, where there’s nothing to do but play in the surf or lie in the sand, gazing at the sea.

From the shore, you can see a small island hugging the horizon off to the east. Two green humps divided by a swath of meadow, just far enough away that you can’t really tell what may or may not be there. Over the years it’s kept watch over my personal stretch of ocean, providing the setting for childhood fantasy, teen daydreams, and adult contemplation.

The ocean is a rebel. It is a tempestuous woman. No man can tame her nor resist her siren song. She has claimed so many, so many. They have been dragged to that benthic hell. What are the deepest depths of the sea if not the chthonic realm?

Leviathan seeks not to conquer her. He knows his place. He knows she is Tiamat, the greatest monster of them all. What are the serpents, the dragons, the marked beasts if not the children of the sea? Who then is the hero? Or is it the antihero?

Lucifer is the light-bringer, as the brutal sea speaks only the truth from the shining abyss. She bears the knowledge of good and evil. She contains multitudes thereof. She is legion.

The oceans are never told, “Be smaller. You are too much. Behave.” The sea is never told, “You are not enough.”

“Respect the sea,” they say. Respect her. Respect the woman, the womb, the deep, dark matrix. She is the matron, the All-Mother. The ocean is not evil, but chaos. She is a rebel. She tells men, “go to hell”. Or perhaps, “come to hell”.

Humans have been navigating and charting the seas at least since the Phoenicians, yet the ocean remains the last frontier. Even outer space is not as mysterious to us as the depths of the oceans, of which an estimate of only about 5% has been explored and charted. This is staggering considering the ocean covers 70% of our planet.

This is not unlike our own emotions or subconscious which, among many other things, the ocean represents. Our subconscious and darker sides are often as deep and mysterious to us as the abyss. There is no escaping that we are incredibly emotional and watery creatures. This also makes us magical for, as anthropologist Loren Eisley put it, “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” We are water, and we therefore contain magic as well as records and ancestral memories in that strange medium. Also containing salt, we are like walking micro-oceans, ever connected to our source.

While there are different names for the different parts of the ocean, it is all one ocean in the end, one whole being connected all over the planet. This interconnection is echoed throughout nature and the human condition, and in all our individual lives.

In many traditions, the ocean represents the primordial source of life itself. Just as life emerged from the depths of the ocean in evolutionary narratives, so too does it signify the origins of creation in spiritual contexts. It is often seen as the womb of existence, where all life began and where all life returns. In this sense, the ocean becomes a metaphor for the eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

Tritons are a type of mollusk, a large (10-40 cm long) sea snail in the genus Charonia. That's a photo of one of their shells above. They live in tropical and temperate waters around the world, including in the Mediterranean. As you might guess, the Minoans knew about them.

In fact, the Minoans were kind of obsessed with them. I have some thoughts about that obsession.

The Minoans were a seafaring people, so it's no surprise that their art is full of marine life, exhibiting their deep connection with the sea goddess Posidaeja. Most people are familiar with the dolphins and octopuses that appear on so many Minoan marine ware vessels and frescoes. But there's another sea creature that shows up in Minoan art, mostly on ceramic containers, a creature that was so odd, it took us a while to figure out its identity.

Have a look at the marine ware jug at the top of this post. The critter painted on it looks like an octopus that's holed up in a nautilus shell, sticking its tentacles out and waving them.

Many pagan rituals begin with the purificatory sprinkling of salt water. This act mythically reenacts creation: as all life arose in the womb of the Sea, so too do the touch of its waters make new.

What follows are the preparatory formulas that I myself generally use.

The Blessing of Salt and Water

(Take up dish of salt)

Blessings be upon you, O Salt.

(Sign)

In the name of Mabh, be blessed.

(Raise dish of Salt)

(Take up bowl of water)

Blessings be upon you, O Water.

(Sign)

In the name of Mabh, be blessed.

(Raise dish of Water)

(Add three good three-finger pinches of Salt into Water. Using aspergillum, stir three times.)

In the beginning was the Sea.

(Sprinkle.)

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Marine ware is one of the more striking styles of ceramics created by the Minoans of ancient Crete. Vessels such as the one above (image CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons) evoke the motion and beauty of the many fascinating creatures that live in the Mediterranean Sea. Minoan potters made marine ware vessels in a variety of different shapes and sizes, featuring a handful of fascinating sea creatures.

The jug above shows argonauts, a.k.a. paper nautiluses, along with the coral-and-seaweed background that appears on most marin eware. The females of this fascinating type of deep-sea octopus secrete a papery egg case that looks very much like a nautilus shell. Interestingly, the better-known nautilus mollusk was named after the paper nautilus and not the other way around. Minoan sailors and traders must have encountered these fascinating creatures on their voyages around the Mediterranean.