Before there was earth as we know it—mountains, forests, and the shape of continents—there was water. Oceans were seeded by icy meteors colliding with a young molten earth. These waters became the first cradle of life, where microorganisms learned to breathe, move, and evolve. To dive into the ocean is to touch this earliest memory of our planet. To remember that we, too, are bodies of saltwater—each heartbeat echoing a time when life belonged fully to the sea.
Ocean as Womb of the Earth
We carry the ocean inside us. Our blood plasma, lymph, and cellular fluids mirror the mineral composition of seawater—every cell swimming in a microcosm of the ancient sea. Biologists call us “walking bags of seawater,” reminders that the ocean is not outside us but within.
Before birth, we each begin life immersed in amniotic fluid, practicing breath-holding until our first gasp of air. Embryos even echo aquatic ancestors, with gill-like slits and tail structures—whispers of our oceanic lineage. And when we float or dive, our nervous system recognises this homecoming, slowing the heart and softening us back into depth.
Reconnecting with the Ocean
Reconnecting with the ocean is more than returning to nature—it is returning to ourselves. The sea is a material, spiritual, and somatic resource, offering calm, expansion, and belonging. Yet in modern life we live far from water, bound to industrial rhythms and even fear of the depths. Immersing in the sea’s rhythms restores our nervous system, reawakens our intimacy with water, and reminds us of our first home.
Mammalian Dive Response: Shared Aquatic Heritage
When we hold our breath and submerge, our bodies remember. The mammalian dive reflex activates: the heart slows (bradycardia), blood vessels narrow (vasoconstriction), and blood shifts to protect vital organs. This ancient reflex reveals our shared aquatic heritage, written into physiology across mammals. Beyond survival, it evokes a psychological state of calm, clarity, and presence—like a return to the safety of the womb.
Ocean as Mirror of Psyche
To dive into the ocean is to dive into ourselves. Its depth, mystery, and vastness reflect the hidden layers of our own psyche, asking us to surrender control and trust in what cannot be seen. Somatically, immersion softens the body into flow; mythically, the ocean is the archetype of the unconscious, holding both danger and renewal. Freediving becomes a practice of exploring these inner depths as much as the outer ones.
Remembering Origins
The ocean is not only a place but a teacher, a resource, and a home that shaped us long before we stood on land. Freediving offers a way to ritualize this remembering—to descend, pause, and listen in the realm where life first began. In this act, we reconnect with ancestry, physiology, and spirit, reweaving ourselves into the story of the Earth. Each dive is a return.
Join us –Four days of somatics and freediving nested between the mountains and sea of Bali this Oct 31 – Nov 3, 2025: Oceanic Origins: Somatic Freediving Immersion, a collaboration between Subtle Waters and Body as Earth. Explore the fluid thresholds of breath, body, and ocean.
Further resources:
* The Blue Planet (BBC series, David Attenborough) – origins of the ocean & marine evolution
* National Geographic & NASA articles on how Earth got its water (meteors, comets, early geology)
* Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us – poetic-scientific classic on ocean as origin of life
* Sylvia Earle’s The World is Blue – contemporary ecological and spiritual perspective on oceans
* Scientific journals on the mammalian dive reflex (start with Panneton, 2013, “The mammalian diving response: an enigmatic reflex to preserve life?”)