The sea has always fascinated people.
The sea is such a big mystery.
Still today we don't know everything about the seas and we don't know everything that happens in the sea.
And so much of the world is covered with water so people are always inspired by the sea.
There's something very magical about the sea and that also creates fascination for mermaids.
Because the sea,
It has this amazing power for people.
It can have a very calming effect just to watch the sea or look at the sea.
Sea is peaceful.
Sea can be very scary if there is a storm or big waves and tsunamis.
And then sea can be friendly.
A peaceful sea.
In the old days when people didn't really have this kind of scuba diving equipment that we have today,
It was really difficult to know what was underneath the sea.
And a lot of people did believe that there were lots of cities and underwater creatures and mermaids.
Literally mermaids living in the seas.
When sailors went on these long trips the landscape might be pretty boring.
Lack of food.
What if there was an epidemic in the ship and the sailors became sick?
Sometimes they might see hallucinations.
If a person drinks seawater that can create hallucinations.
Loneliness in the sea.
Being isolated.
That could make a sailor go a bit mad.
Most of the time the sailors brought different kind of merchandise from one country to another.
Or the sailors went fishing.
Most of the sailors were men.
The work was physically very demanding.
The life of a sailor wasn't always that easy.
But if you would face many setbacks during your long trip,
That could easily start the myths about mermaids.
Some men let their imagination go wild.
There are stories that Christopher Columbus saw some mermaids on his journeys but now people think that they were probably manatees.
But if you see a manatee or a seal from a far distance it can look like a human with a tail.
A lot of times the stories about mermaids they were told among the sailors as sort of moral guides.
Sometimes these stories were told as entertainment.
Not just mermaid stories.
Also stories about the sea monsters.
All kinds of legends about the sea and sea creatures.
And it was really just in the 20th century that scuba diving and equipment started to develop.
Diving has a very long history in different cultures.
And various paintings or pictures of divers can be found from ancient Assyria.
And that they would print through straws.
And then there are also pictures of divers being whistled out for us from ancient Greece.
And the old days the divers go look for pearls or coral or sea spiders and stuff like that.
But to see what it is underwater and to be able to breathe there,
That wasn't so easy.
So for centuries and centuries people did not really know what light you need to see.
Pet stock have all developed symbolically like mermaids.
Out there has always been considered past sort of development.
And it was according to one theory that when we see mermaids swimming in ocean that reminds us from our own origin.
Since we all started our journey in our mother's womb the mermaid reminds us of the underwater realm where anything is possible.
So perhaps we unconsciously are longing to remember that feeling of being weightless.
And our bodies and our brains contain lots of water.
We are all made of water.
Even though we cannot breathe underwater we have this connection with water and infinity with water.
Mermaid is this half human half fish hybrid.
It represents this longing that we still have towards the sea.
And the early people identified their gods and goddesses with water because water is needed for life to sustain.
Then we have these massive storms and tsunamis.
This duality in nature is fascinating.
And it's the same with mermaids because they are these beautiful seductive creatures who bring good things.
But then they can also be aggressive and destroy things.
Same way as the ocean.
One of the mermaid archetypes is actually the wise woman.
And perhaps this is not so common in our current culture.
One of those archetypes is the opposite.
It's the Ursula,
The sea witch.
In the ancient Babylonia the sea god Ea.
He was the one who brought wisdom to mankind.
He was the bringer of knowledge.
So Ea represents the wise man or the wise woman archetype.
A lot of these myths from around the world about mermaids tell the stories of these mermaids who come to teach mankind.
Or they have some kind of divine messages.
They can have the power to heal.
The Haitian mermaid La Sirene.
She pulls a woman underwater and then she returns her back to the surface.
And the woman becomes a wise woman or a psychic.
La Sirene blesses her with her psychic gifts.
In psychology mermaid symbolizes all these things.
The emotions,
The intuition,
The wisdom.
And because mermaid lives underwater she has access to all these things that us land folk don't have.
To some people that mermaid swims in these depths of the ocean it's actually symbol of our human subconscious.
And all these treasures they hide there in the bottom.
And when we work our inner selves that's when we become better as human beings.
In many of these stories mermaid is actually half snake,
Half person.
And snake in many countries is a creature that represents wisdom.
In Australia and in India definitely.
In Europe and then sadly in a lot of other parts of the world snakes were demonized by the church.
Here in Finland and then in Baltic countries there was a custom to bury snakes underneath their houses when the houses were built.
Thus they were believed to be good luck bringers.
The grass snake.
They are harmless to people.
Oh and there were grass snakes in the yards.
The people would feed them and give them milk.
Their ability to bring good luck to people.
I bet you life most Finnish people nowadays don't know about this and most people are very deadly afraid of snakes.
And it has a lot to do with the church demonizing snakes over the centuries.
For the Hindu snake still today symbolizes the force of life.
