A short conversation (interview) exploring the symbolic role of water in myths and its psychological significance for personal rebirth. The speaker argues water symbolizes creation, cleansing, emotional immersion, and is essential to mature manhood alongside fire.
The role of water or the symbol of water that is often found in descent when you read different myths. And so can you just speak to what water symbolizes, the role of it? And again bringing some tangibility into what that might look like within somebody's life.
Water is the beginning of creation. Creation begins with the eternal dark waters. Water was needed to wash the individual and the community clean, to give everybody a fresh start. So water would be the rebirth plan. And it's the opposite of fire. So in terms of manhood, a man could not be made in fire alone because he would be too brittle. And so one of the big things missing that has to do with fire and water is the immersion of a young person into the waters, of the emotions, into the heat and the coolness and all that in order to learn who they are and how they function psychologically. And so water is probably the element we most need now.
How to Raise Strong, Unshakable Boys in Today's Culture, with Dr. Shefali Tsabary
