Sink

I spent an afternoon in active imagination with the sinks of my dreams (thank you, Robert Johnson). Sometimes I am leaning over them, sometimes using them, sometimes the faucets are broken, sometimes they are stopped up, sometimes they are the sinks of my childhood. Sometimes they are upside down, embedded in ceilings (quiet, elevation, more difficult to reach, solitude). Sometimes suspicious folks are lurking in them. They are often warmth; I linger here when I am visiting with loved ones in the kitchen. My pose embodies the mundane. I love the mundane, especially when I am in community. 

I was told clearly in a dream once that swimming pools are portals, a way to connect to my dead, to spirits. So, are sinks the same? They are simply smaller basins for holding water, after all. 

I learned this: the bath/tub, sink, pool are kin. Sinks are vessels, receptacles, they hold both waste and food/nourishment, they are a valve, a portal, a gateway between the material and the elevated (this means the eighth house: the altar, thanks to Carol). They are transition, a catchment, a go-between, a symbol of choice, a womb, medium of spirit and earth. Something holy. Sink/sing are phonetically similar. As I made this connection the sinks began to sing: they are whistling as air blown past the drain makes a song. To sink is also to hide, to make invisible, to slink, escape. The sink is protective cover, containment with an out, a built in trap door, a way to disappear. Water can go to places the body cannot go and also fills the body.

I now approach my dishes with both the old disdain and new reverence. I feel great joy and gratitude when the dishes are clean and cleared. I am mindful what I dispose of, what I ask a sink to hold. I give thanks for what they contain and what they carry away.