https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=UGF6CImYAAg
I’m noticing an interesting pattern for initiates into orthodoxy. In the exorcism we spit, send out water of our bodies on Satan. In baptism we are submerged in water that has been blessed at Christmation. We are sealed with oil which does not mix with water so that we are essentially waterproof, keeping the symbolism of water as death chaos. Am I seeing this in the right way? Yeah, I would say that you’re seeing part of it, you’re seeing half of it. I talked about this before, there are two waters. There’s a water above, there’s a water below. In scripture at the beginning of Genesis, God separates the waters. So at first the earth is watery and then he separates the waters. There’s the water which goes above the heavens and then there’s this water which is below. And so you can understand it as a kind of potentiality. I always talk about how the margin goes low and goes high at the same time. This is also related to the death and glory problem, which is that death goes lower but it also brings you higher. And the waters go lower but they also go higher. And so in our tradition, in the symbolism, you have the water below which usually represents exactly what you said, which usually represents death, a kind of cleansing of death. But there’s also water which comes from above and that is usually seen as a blessing. It’s a water which comes from above in terms of blessing, you know, when they sprinkle blessed water, rain. And also, for example, in Catholic baptism, they tend to emphasize mostly the idea of water from above. And so they take the water, bring it up and then pour it down on the person. You know, they make that gesture, bring the water up and then pouring it down. And in Orthodoxy, we have that a little bit, not as much. The idea that it has to be, it’s supposed to be active water, it’s supposed to be moving water. And so, you know, like some priests will make a wave even in the baptismal font to have this kind of moving water, depends on the different things. And so you really have these two poles. So it’s not just death and chaos, but it’s also kind of higher potential, you could say, or something which, that which is above which comes down as water. So hopefully that helps and it just, maybe it just confused you more. It’s also possible.