‘Water Being’: exploring aquatic bodywork

‘Water Being’, as the title suggests, is also about a different way of being. It is as if the element of water has released individuals from their normal ‘land-locked’ selves, enabling them to return to an essential state of pure being and oneness with others. As Jacques Cousteau put it, “From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.”

“The water is a dissolver; all kinds of contact are easier in the water,” explains Ireno. “I was amazed to see how the water broke down barriers between the participants who were able, in a very short time, to reach a deep level of intimacy and closeness by surrendering themselves to this element and, most importantly, by deeply caring for one another.”

Images of surrender, care and oneness: it’s not difficult to understand why this exhibition received such enthusiastic responses from Aurovilians. Ireno feels it is good for us as a community to see this. “It’s a kind of documentation of our progress towards human unity, a confirmation that on many levels it is happening, even if we don’t often see it. Little did I know when I embarked on this journey that it would be so enriching, that I would become a privileged witness to some of the most profound, intimate, soul-touching moments that I could ever have imagined.”

That journey began almost 15 years ago when Ireno saw one person supporting another in the pool of the Quiet Healing Centre. He took a few shots with a small digital camera. When he viewed the pictures later he was immediately attracted by something in them.

Some years later, Harold Dull, the creator of Watsu (‘water shiatsu’) came to Auroville to run some workshops. Ireno asked him if he could take pictures. At first Harold was reluctant, but then he agreed. When he saw the pictures he was impressed. “He told me that if I planned to make a book one day he would be happy to write poems to go with the photos. So that was an open door for me: I was accepted.”

Ireno reckons he has taken almost 40,000 shots on this theme over the last three years. Why so many? “As the medium is so fluid, there are always new expressions, new images: Harold Dull describes Watsu as ‘poems in water’. Once or twice I thought I had got almost everything, but then I discovered another aquatic practice – and there are many different ones being used in Quiet – which showed me a side I had not yet seen.”

As an example, he mentions a visiting teacher who began to work with larger groups in the water. Ireno was amazed by the new visual and emotional content. “The movements of the individuals in the water are completely free, but there are moments when the flux turns into synergies and all the bodies are linked in some way, twenty people becoming one entity.”

Sometimes those ‘synergies’ seem archetypal. Ireno points to a photo in the exhibition. It shows many people in the water at the same time. Those in the lower part seem struggling, “but at the top one figure seems to be ascending, as if liberated from the struggles of life.”

He indicates other ‘archetypal’ images. In one, the guide seems to be guiding the recipient through a gate of light. In another, four women and a man support the prone form of Louis in an almost exact transcription of famous images of Christ’s deposition from the Cross.

Ireno admits that the choice of subjects may reflect his classical Italian training. He often sees forms which remind him of Renaissance paintings. “But I also think water ‘releases’ these archetypal images because it returns us to essentials.”

What were the particular challenges Ireno faced? Did he have to develop new techniques, approaches, to document this work?

Ireno says that when he went to take the first pictures, it was “as if I was entering a sanctuary. I had to be sure not to make any ‘waves’ around me.” At the same time, he couldn’t be just an observer; he had to become part of what was happening. “This means that at times, when something particularly powerful was happening in the water, I also became emotionally involved.” Technically, Ireno also had to deal with the challenges posed by the extreme reflectivity of water. He began by using a polarising filter to eliminate reflections, but then he felt something important was missing, so learned to allow or eliminate reflections according to his intuition and to the subject-matter.

Ireno would like to make a book based upon the work he has done so far. “I see these practices as a potential vehicle for helping human consciousness on its journey towards expansion and transformation. The book, by documenting this research, could be a valuable ambassador of the work we are doing in Auroville.”

Harold Dull has agreed to write the introduction as well as poems to accompany the images. “Now all we need to do,” says Ireno, “is to secure funding.”