#waterfeels

...The water actually didn’t taste so bad when I tried it myself. A little bit on the... “Warm” side? I don’t know how to describe it; it was a Flavor, not Temperature. Kinda warm... kinda mineral-y but not like Fiji brand water bicarbonate minerals, more like... licking a rock. Mildly, but it was there........ probably because Lake Erie is where we get our tap water, and the Lake has mineral beds with a TON of calcium and limestone that dissolves into the water, thus comes through the tap.....

Anyways, point is, the water Tasted a Little Funny to me but it’s safe for the doves.

And also, apparently makes water safe enough that I could put it in the fish tanks and not need to add the dechlorinator / dechloraminator. At last, 99% safe enough.

(....I’m still gonna be adding the lowest recommended dose of Prime, just to be on the safe side. And also because my plants are kinda funky and I never know when their spontaneous root growths have caught some teeny piece of food that my teeny tiny siphon missed and is maybe releasing all sorts of nitrogen compounds, and Prime neutralizes those things before it can hurt the fish...)

But I also found out that when dechloraminators work on chloramines, they create nitrogen compounds that the [good] filter bacteria eat!

Nice, nice.

I think I’m going to start filtering all the water I give my living things now; not just when I’m showering and not just for the betta tanks [I used the filter because it’s also a SOFTENER, removes “hard” minerals that bettas do better in water without]... but also the chins, birds, and plants. ouo

(Chlorine especially, but also sometimes chloramine, mercury, copper, lead, and mineral calcium compounds in Regular Ohio Tap Water is actually relatively BAD for things. I mean my plants aren’t of the finicky types, and my pets, though they drink more water when I give them spring water than tap, haven’t exhibited any signs of metal poisoning or chlorine irritation... but even so. I’d like to give them the legitimately-HEALTHIEST water I can.

Sometimes I just don’t have enough to share, but I usually try to give them Better Than Tap water, because I go by the motto: “If I wouldn’t want to eat / drink it, why would I let my pets?” (Because they are also living things that can get sick or hurt by something that’s not safe or clean.)

So, yes. Definitely filtering EVERYBODY’S water now if I run out of spring.

(A selkie is a being that has both a human and a seal form; if I remember the myths correctly, the Selkie would essentially be a humanoid creature, that has a special skin that transforms them into a seal. Usually they live in the water, and visit the land... But oftentimes, the stories told are bittersweet and lovelorn, tearing the creature between two worlds and forcing them to choose: one, or the other. In both concept and contextual feeling: I think.... I’ve experienced that before.)

I think this is a Past Life sort of kintype.

See, I’ve always had a feeling that I was Something Else. Not human. I mean-- obviously, duh. Physical body, DNA, blood type O-something, with undoubtable magic and mysticism woven somewhere into my genetics, but exactly how far does that go?

I used to wonder if I was a mermaid in a person’s body. Or if I swam fast enough, or far enough, or long enough, something I desperately needed in the water would come back to me.

(I now know that there’s the Alternate Lapis form; clearly, my soul has a serious thing for water. 8F But that only explains the penchant for USING water, being around it, walking over pebbles cast into it. Water magic. I fly far more than I swim in my Lapis form-- although I love being SURROUNDED by the water, it’s more of a leisurely isolation than a Swimming thing. It’s an atmosphere of the waterline and surface tension, where the water meets the air and breaking it means taking flight.)

But this... This is swimming. This is the sea. This is surrounding myself in water, and loving it, playing in it, relying on it. But also being a part of the land.

When I was a child, I used to slip off the edge of pools into the water, and perfectly imagine myself doing it like a seal. Naturally; it was never anything anybody taught me, or praised me for. It just felt right to do, and so I did it. I loved that feeling more than jumping into the water, diving or cannon-balling or any other way.

I never liked diving boards much at all, really, but once I was in the water, I absolutely loved diving DOWN. And I wiggled and waved a little bit naturally, from my shoulders all the way down to my toes, much like a seal. Again: just, instinctively. Once I found out that people in the big leagues use this technique even in OLYMPIC swimming (though people usually compared themselves to dolphins rather than seals), I was absolutely DELIGHTED.

And watching nature documentaries, about the sealife, about the shore... Whenever there were seals on screen: I felt home. I almost felt towards them the same way you feel towards your pet. Or, your family.

(I have a very deep, strong connection to ALL living things-- some inanimate, even... but to feel like I KNOW them. THAT is a form of magic, all its own.)

And, shapeshifting. Clearly that’s a big part of my existence-- astral, anyways. (I don’t get that feeling nearly at all with the Lapis form. How many soulforms and manifestations and projections do I have, now? R, W, T, corvid, lapis, there’s been a red wolf moment, and a bear moment... angelic feels, and demonic feels, forestine and ocenaic... Far too many and far too personal to all count or have names for, in the end.)

I don’t have the strength to “articulate” much else into text... but.

I think the part of me that belongs to water-- that belongs to, specifically, EARTH’S water, and delights in the soul-deep experience of the sea (for I only saw it once, and was never close enough to touch it, and I mourn this)...

I think it’s because I was a Selkie.