In passing, researching "To Be or Not To Be, That is the Question: Yhwh and Ea, by Anne Marie Kitz, in Vol. 80 Issue 2 - Apr 2018, Catholic Biblical Quarterly.
I arrive at Wikipedia, water and Enki:
The cosmogenic myth common in Sumer was that of the hieros gamos, a sacred marriage where divine principles in the form of dualistic opposites came together as male and female to give birth to the cosmos. In the epic Enki and Ninhursag, Enki, as lord of Ab or fresh water (also the Sumerian word for semen), is living with his wife in the paradise of Dilmun where
Despite being a place where "the raven uttered no cries" and "the lion killed not, the wolf snatched not the lamb, unknown was the kid-killing dog, unknown was the grain devouring boar", Dilmun had no water and Enki heard the cries of its goddess, Ninsikil, and orders the sun-god Utu to bring fresh water from the Earth for Dilmun. As a result,
Dilmun was identified with Bahrain, whose name in Arabic means "two seas", where the fresh waters of the Arabian aquifer mingle with the salt waters of the Persian Gulf. This mingling of waters was known in Sumerian as Nammu, and was identified as the mother of Enki.
(-- Enki, Wikipedia)I can imagine the earliest experience of water. It must have seemed that one was drinking God, washing with God, cooking with God, immersing in God.
In earliest pre-Socratic philosophy, Thales of Miletus said that water was 'it.'
3. Thales says Water is the Primary Principle
Aristotle defined wisdom as knowledge of certain principles and causes (Metaph. 982 a2-3). He commenced his investigation of the wisdom of the philosophers who preceded him, with Thales, the first philosopher, and described Thales as the founder of natural philosophy (Metaph. 983 b21-22). He recorded: 'Thales says that it is water'. 'it' is the nature, the archê, the originating principle. For Thales, this nature was a single material substance, water. Despite the more advanced terminology which Aristotle and Plato had created, Aristotle recorded the doctrines of Thales in terms which were available to Thales in the sixth century B.C.E., Aristotle made a definite statement, and presented it with confidence. It was only when Aristotle attempted to provide the reasons for the opinions that Thales held, and for the theories that he proposed, that he sometimes displayed caution.
(-- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Thales of Miletus (c. 620 B.C.E.—c. 546 B.C.E.)Walking with leashed Rokpa in City of Rockland yesterday, melting sand and snow brown puddles at edge of every corner, waiting for new tires to be mounted, I am splashed by passing car with the essence of things on black coat and space grey trousers because that's just the way of things.
The white dog asks why, when there are several hundreds of acres of mountain out behind our house, we are walking the edges of snow and ice and melting mix of sand and salt on city streets, rushing cars uninterested in us after the undulation of temperature following several inches of wet storm the day before.
The various faces of water.
The sniggering sound of God.
