Morgan Mitchell

This is our story. This is what healing in community looks like. This is what doing a hard thing together feels like. This is the warmth of cold.

Little Dippers, a gorgeous, poetic documentary by the brilliant film maker and editor, dipper and dear friend Mike Malle @krnalpanic

We are so stoked that Mike’s work will be featured at Sunday’s Water Women Film Fest hosted by @twomainemermaids at @space538

Cold water dipping has molted me down closer to my essence. There is a watery etching that happens with every dip. Every icy glance skyward something lets loose, something shakes awake somehow. I now realize that I can come to the water with something and leave without it. This drawing quality, a pulling out of my body things that I could not reach, is the perfect companion to any healing journey, and frankly, we are all healing from something.

The cold filled in my edges, like a liquid blue cocking along my warped frame. Silken sensation. A hard feeling that leaves a rippling wake of tenderness somehow. A corrosive yet gentle burn, an elective affliction, steeping ourselves like breathing tea leaves, bringing us to an internal boil.

The intensity that brings life up from the earth in Spring, stringy green things climbing skyward - it is that same intensity that strikes a silvery chord within our frozen bellies. We are touching the live wire of existence, maybe, or maybe are are touching nothing at all, the center of the basin, the void where only energy lives. I don’t think I will ever fully understand the powers possessed by the cold, but I know that I have been forever changed by its electrifying touch and the wake of warmth and connection is has set into motion.

Forever grateful for @iamwritingstorieswiththelight for encouraging me to get in the ocean when I was in so much pain. You are the original Little Dipper and inspire me daily.

#coldwaterimmersion #coldexposure #coldwaterdipping #mainecoldwaterswimming #healingincommunity