Steve Mentz takes a really interesting perspective on establishing a clear relationship between the ocean beyond its existence just being something we enjoy; he recognizes it is embedded in our nature in more ways than one. He references the popular oceanic centric book we often discuss, Moby Dick: “One of the most widely quoted phrases from the novel holds that ‘meditation and water are wedded for ever.’4” (Mentz, 139). The word meditation is what truly defines this, considering how it’s perceived and utilized within modern society. Meditation’s connotation of peace and relaxation begin to flesh out how water belongs to “nature”, in the sense of relaxation’s connection to being stationary, to being at rest.

Without trying, water finds itself resting within us, our genetic makeups, and connecting to it allows almost this greater connection and grounding to ourselves. Minor habits like needing to drink water when we want to stop tears from coming, or splashing cold water when we become so consumed by anger, we need a snap back to reality. It is literally married to our ideals of breaking calamity, our need for stability because of its connection to the natural world around us. The life it takes on, the movement of its own, to run and crash the way we could, to dance and shine the way fire can, draws us to spiritually connect with it as something of solitude, as it juxtaposes flame’s intensity.

His insight on this intertwined reality ties back to our focus on mermaids specifically when he addresses the ocean’s connection to us: “A poetics that emerges from an encounter with alienating water always relates itself to the awkward relationship of humans and water; we depend upon it and love it, but it cannot be our home” (140). This peace found within it, combined with an inability to ever truly be immersed in it totally seems to have almost driven the need to create mermaids. Desire to be and feel human cognition, but be able to survive as aquatic beings describes them so exactly, and reflects how their existence forces us to recognize how the peace can be disrupted. So long as the world deteriorates at the rate it does, our creatures that depend on it for sustenance, and not just a moment of grounding, suffer and thereby push attention on its decline. It gives us a way to holistically appreciate it, and in trying times, a way to recognize faults.