Uisce
The Irish Word for “Water.”
Water is life-giving. We meet it from the very beginning, in the womb. We emerge into the world when the waters break. It has deep symbolic significance in Celtic mythology. It represents wisdom and the feminine. For thousands of years, the Gaelic term “Fíor Uisce” (feer-ishka), meaning true water, has been used for water sources of the highest purity. Where i grew up in Connemara, there was great respect for "tober fíor uisce" (wells of 'true water').
It had a numinous quality. Springs gushed forth from the ground and were seen as a gift from a divine world.
Danú, in Celtic mythology, is referred to as the Mother of the Gods. She is seen as the goddess of rivers, wisdom, and fertility. Sacred wells are still found today all over Ireland. Since Christianity, the wells have become associated with different saints. Even today, they are places of annual pilgrimage where people go for healing and blessings from the water.
Water is also associated with the Moon and the tides. In depth psychology, it is a symbol of the unconscious. Water is what makes life itself possible.
Focail Gaeilge | ‘Irish Words’
In this series, I share words in Gaeilge (Irish) and explore these words through a Depth Psychology lens, allowing us to begin exploring our inner world— our psyche, and deepen our understanding of our place in the world around us. When we embrace our native language or become curious about the languages from our ancestral roots, we can embrace our sense of place, our speech, our imagination, our psyche, and the song of the soul...
