#23 Ma - The Water Element

Kolkata - 15th August 2025

It is not water in the narrow chemical sense, yet water is our closest teacher of this principle. Our sense of flow is learned from rivers, oceans and rain. The flowing relief of a sip of water in the scorching summer heat that quenches our thirst.

The sound: Ma, is old. Across the world, Ma, Mum, Mother – all begin with that same Mmm. Likely one of the easiest sound for a child to learn to make. Lips closed, air flowing gently through the nose.

Ma is The Tangible Flow - flowing matter which you can touch. Ma is bound by its own cohesion, yet fluid and formless. It is unstoppable as its persistent flow finds a way around any obstructing rigidity.

In the candle's cycle, Ma is most conspicuously manifested in the melted wax. Still tethered to the Earth by its own cohesive forces, but freed from the stiffness of the solid. The heat of Shi keeps it alive, always moving, always feeding the transformation toward Va. Without Ma, there is nothing to transform, nothing to combust or breathe.

Tangible Flow is patient but unstoppable. It can be soft, yet carve valleys and split stone. When Ma transforms into Va, flow transcends gravity and is freed from its cohesive complexity. The bound becomes free, the subtle is born from the tangible.

It is the fuel to the fire, the blood to the breath. The agent of change in the cycle of transformation.