For a long time many humans felt that the body was a prison in which the human spirit was temporarily captured, and that the purpose of human life was to progressively break free of the chains and bars of such a prison. In the West such a theory has not been explicitly propounded in recent times except by the increasingly numerous advocates of Eastern religious beliefs and practices. Water is the primal element. It is the matrix in which all else exists. Yet it is terribly destructive, too, wiping out fields, flocks, towns, and people.
Water is the source of both life and death.
As the primal element of the world in which we live, water has all the ambiguities of the rest of the environment in a quintessential way. We know the fear of trying to drive a car at night in a blinding rainstorm or on a frozen and slippery road. Yet we know the pleasure of a cold drink when we are thirsty, the joy of diving into a lake or pool on a hot summer's day, the comfort of a warm bath or a brisk shower when we are tense and tired. We know the relief of a rainstorm which ends a long hot spell, and the beauty of snowflakes gently covering the brown and barren earth. As the primal element in our world, the primary matrix of our life, water participates in the fundamental ambiguity of life.