Part 2: The Physics of the Rise

This is part of a three-year exploration of the Siren archetype that involves moving from survival to stillness, and finally, to sovereignty.

As I re-read my thoughts from Power in Depth, I began to wonder about the mechanics of how we actually stay there safely. What happens when the “middle ground” stops feeling like a waiting room and starts feeling like its own destination?

I am reminded of a story my aunt told me before she passed.

She was swimming across a lake, a distance she believed she could master. Halfway through, the shore began to feel farther away than her strength could reach. Fatigue turned into struggle; struggle turned into panic. And in the logic of the panicked mind, the only solution is to fight harder.

But the harder she fought the water, the faster the water claimed her. She began to sink.

As she went under, losing breath and drifting toward unconsciousness, the “movie reel” of her life began to play. The fight was over because there was nothing left to fight with. She finally, completely, stopped resisting.

And that is when she rose.

I couldn’t help but think of myself. The way I try to determine my path, my direction, my next steps. The way I try to assign meaning to everything as if clarity must be earned through effort.

I’m not sure whether this conditioning is universal or uniquely mine, but I have long believed that rising is an act of will—a muscular, aggressive ascent.

A knee-jerk response to claw for the surface, to climb the water like a ladder.

But my aunt’s experience suggests a different physics. She didn’t swim to the surface; she stopped adding density.

In this middle ground of my own life, I realize I have been braced for struggle. Treading water with a quiet, constant effort. Afraid that if I stop processing, or healing, or figuring it out, I will disappear into the dark.

I have been treating growth like a marathon swim, measuring the distance to a shore I am not even sure I want to land on yet.

To the Siren, the water is not an enemy to be conquered; it is the medium that holds her.

If I carry my aunt’s lesson into this space, buoyancy becomes my new home frequency. It is the acceptance that I don’t have to solve my grief or resolve my survival reflexes in order to stay afloat.

I only have to stop adding weight to what already exists.

When we stop resisting the bruise, the longing, the fear, we become less dense. We take up our full space. We allow our breath to meet the truth of just this, just now—and the water begins to lift us without instruction.

I hate the idea that as soon as you stop looking, the thing you are searching for appears. And yet, perhaps there is a truth there I have resisted—not because I don’t understand it, but because I have been afraid of what happens when I stop assigning meaning so quickly.

My aunt did not see her life’s “movie reel” at the finish line, but in the depths. So perhaps clarity is not something waiting on the shore. Perhaps it only becomes visible when we are deep enough to stop struggling, but still present enough to witness.

To stop looking does not mean giving up. It means no longer scanning for the storm—or even for the shore.

I am practicing the stillness of the mid-lake. Trusting that the same water that once felt like a weight is also what lifts me—provided I am brave enough to stop trying to save myself from it.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ❤

The Siren Trilogy: The Original Archetype (2023) | Part I: Power in Depth | Part II: The Physics of the Rise | Conclusion: The Sovereign Siren