First, some background
I avoided my initiation with the kontomble. The work with the wedeme and stick divination had added more to my life than I could keep up with. I absolutely could not take on more. For years, every time that I went to a kontomble voice divination, I was told I need to be initiated into kontomble voice divination. I had to decline. Until I didn’t. Eventually I consented to this request. I am now a kontomble voice diviner as well.
The initiation in the Dagara tradition involves “merging consciousness” with or “marrying” an elemental being. This is how one becomes a diviner. Without this “marriage” or merge, one cannot deliver divination. In the Dagara belief system, the elemental beings are facilitating the communication between the diviner and the unseen forces, realms and beings.
Kontomble voice divination is different than stick divination. In voice divination the diviner sits behind a curtain in absolute darkness and allows the elemental beings of the water to use their voice to speak.
In Dagara stick divination, a diviner sits on a stool across from the client who also holds the stick. In stick divination, where one is working with the wedeme, the elemental beings of the wild and the land, the diviner has more time and discretion to negotiate, translate or question the information coming through. (**I was taught that kontomble is the general term used for all elemental beings in Dagaraland. Then it is delineated into kontomble, elemental beings of the water and wedeme, elemental beings of the land and the wild.)
Voice divination with the elemental beings of the water is fast and flowing, with full surrender of one’s being. One might say that sounds like channeling and in some ways I suppose I would too, but the wedeme and kontomble do not agree with this assessment and so we continue to call it voice divination. I do, however, agree that kontomble voice divination is more akin to what we in the west think of as the classic oracular tradition where one goes to listen to the oracle answer questions posed to them. Perhaps the resistance to calling it channeling is that channeling is often understood to mean speaking for the gods, a goddess or an ancestral spirit, rather than the elemental beings or even more, an element—the water. I am not sure.
Voice divination with the kontomble feels more like a flow of water than stick divination with the wedeme which is grounded, earth based and, the clever wittiness of the wedeme aside, tends toward the more serious. Voice divination with kontomble is etheric, high-pitched and ephemeral.
Water spirits I have encountered in my time as a diviner
I have encountered many different water beings in my time as a diviner. I began to see that there are some clear categories emerging. If you are a diviner or oracular priestess, you may have many to add to this list.
Here are the ones I have most encountered to date:
- The elemental beings of the water
- The spirits of rivers, lakes, ponds and streams
- The forces of the oceans and weather (storms)
I will attempt to discuss these categories here. Globally, there are a multitude of traditions with water beings. I cannot possibly cover them all. I do not wish to only repeat what I have read in books. I prefer to stick to those I have immediate, direct experience with. Know when you read the following, that is what I am bringing forward, beings I have actually “met” in one way or another and communicated with.
1. Elemental beings of the water
People merge with or “marry” them—tradition includes songs, dancing and vocal prophecy. These beings allow, accentuate or facilitate oracular work and ability. Sound is important with water beings which includes speaking oracle, singing, high pitched sounds, clicks and vibrations. I personally put fairies in this category as well.
- Sprites fit into the category of elemental beings of the water.
- Kontomble—elemental beings of the water in the Dagara tradition who facilitate voice divination. Though Kontomble are called the elemental beings of the water, Kontomble have also identified themselves as hummingbird, dolphins, whales, snakes, fairies and more.
These are high vibrational beings. The fact that they are water does not limit them to earthly water. There is cosmic water. The kontomble that I work with does not seem to be located to a particular place. She seems to be very cosmic. I experience her as up in the clouds. And yes, she presents as female to me. She says that she travels on the clouds. She says she is water. She does not like the article the in elemental beings of the water. She says that is too far removed. When I asked her if she is in the clouds, she said no, not the way I conceptualize it. She said she is in another dimension. The 13th dimension. I know nothing about this dimension except what kontomble is telling me.
From how it looks and feels when I work with her, I can believe she is from a different dimension and one of a much higher vibration. She seems to be “very far away.” Though it may not be far away in distance, it could be far away dimensionally. That would mean that these “clouds” are not the clouds we are familiar with, the clouds in the sky atmosphere of the earth, the clouds that arise from evaporated water, clouds in 3D. They are cosmic clouds. Perhaps they are nebulae. Clouds in the star making centers of the larger universe. But of another dimension. She says it is sky water. She talks a lot about her and her family being seeds. “We are seeds,” she says over and over again. “Seeds of water.” I don’t know what this means and I don’t know if I should or ever will. I’d rather not guess and extrapolate. I’ve learned to take the elemental beings at their word, rather than assume metaphors. Kontomble and her family are seeds of water in another dimensional realm. She has expressed that she is thankful that I allow her to speak through me as there is no other way she could communicate to all of you.
- Nymphs—this seems to be a Greek classification for elemental beings of the water most especially springs and streams. Nymphs appear often in relation to oracular work in the temples of Delphi and other Greek oracular centers. Some Italian elemental beings also receive this Greek title. Nymphs are often also said to be “go betweens” for deities and mortals, facilitating the communication. Some are local to place, meaning they are associated with or found at a particular location. In much of the material about pre-Roman traditions, nymphs are called “minor deities.” I often think this means elemental beings, though at other times, as with Mefitis, she seems to be a Goddess. It remains somewhat of a mystery to me. Egeria is the famous nymph of Nemi in Italy associated with a stream there and to whom visitors went for oracle.
Read my posts on Mefitis:
Mefitis: The Oscan Goddess of Oracles and Seers and A Place of Worship for the Oscan Goddess Mefitis in the Valle d’Ansanto
- Mermaids can be thought of as human-fish hybrids but they can also be thought of as an elemental being of the water showing up in this hybrid form. Merpeople have shown up in divinations talking about merging or being merged with a human which, in and of itself, can be considered a hybrid. In other words, hybrid beings themselves beg the question: is this a description of a human who has merged consciousness with an elemental being? Is that what we are witnessing with images of hybrid beings? If a human makes this commitment in one lifetime, does it carry through to other lifetimes? In one divination where a mermaid showed up and seemed to have been with the client in this configuration for multiple lifetimes, she said she is also the water which is similar to what kontomble repeat over and over. She was also singing.
2. Spirits of rivers, lakes, ponds and streams
The spirits or gods and goddesses of bodies of water are different than elemental beings in that they very often seem to be local to that body of water. They are the water in its wholeness, in its oneness. They are not not small and diminutive. They are the lake or river, as well as the discrete entity that comes forward as a its persona. People who live near these waters often have an intimate relationship to these beings. Mythology grows around interactions with them.
In The Language of the Goddess, Maria Gimbutas writes:
“Historical sources—Greek, Roman, Celtic, and Baltic—speak again and again of goddesses and nymphs connected with certain rivers, springs, and wells. Rivers often have goddess names or local goddesses have river names, as, for example, the Boyne and the Shannon in Ireland (which allegedly owe their names to the Goddesses Bóand and Sinann). Sequana of the Gauls, the healing goddess after whom the river Seine is named, was worshipped at the source the river where, in the 1960s, hundreds of wooden sculptures were found in the ruins of the Gallo-Roman sanctuary”(43).
Note: we see beings called nymphs in this category as well.
- The snakeman of the lake
One such being showed up to me in divination many times associated with a lake in Europe. He called himself the “snake man.” He appeared to me as a very large human man in a snake body with scales who lives inside the lake. The scales presented as tattoos on human skin. He also had small arms. He showed himself many times as the spirit of that particular lake, intensely local to place. (To protect his identity, I will not name the place.) He was sad to have been forgotten and wanted to be interacted with once again. He is both the lake and a sovereign being.
- The woman in the river
The river that is local to where I currently live showed herself to me in the form of a woman. She too felt she had been forgotten and even worse, denigrated. I was given many rituals to attend to her and attempt to make amends, one of them was a doll crafted out of organic materials. These beings are both the water and the voice of the water.
Interacting with these beings seems to be healing and enlivening to the water. The Danube, named after Celtic Goddess Danu, showed herself to me as powerful Goddess who wanted offerings.
I am not sure if every body of water has a resident “spirit.”There are many other bodies of water I attend to who have not shown themselves to me in this way. Rivers and streams often ask us to find their headwaters and make offerings there or the place where the freshwater meets the saltwater. This seems to be consistent wherever one is on the planet and it is very different than interactions with elemental beings.
3. Ocean deities
Christian Mary is named after the Sea Goddess Mari. Barbara Walker reminds us that water is the mother of all things. Baptismal fonts are called wombs. “Goddess shrines were nearly always associated with wells, springs, lakes or seas”(Walker 154).
Yemaya is the name I use when I visit mother ocean. It is how she asked me to call her. The Penguin Book of Mermaids states that she makes her home in the Ogun River in West Africa.
“When the Yoruba peoples were captured during the transatlantic slave trade, they brought their worship of Yemoja with them. Today she is a transnational water goddess known by the local transliteration of her Yoruba name”(166).
Ocean deities are very large forces on the scale of Cosmic Justice. I always approach the ocean with the deepest humility. I would place the oceans and the seas in the category of elemental forces which is a much larger scale than elemental beings and spirits of lakes and rivers. You can read more about these delineations in my book, Notes from a Diviner in the Postmodern World: A Handbook for Spirit Workers.
All of this is food for thought as I continue to listen to, interact with and make friends with the water and its many manifestations and carry out voice divinations. I am sure I have much more to learn.
©Theresa C. Dintino 2026
Featured image: Mermaid in drop of water from jcoope12 on pixabay
Works cited:
Bacchilega & Alohalani Brown, eds. The Penguin Book of Mermaids, 2019.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess. Harper & Row, 1989.
Walker, Barbara G., The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Harper Collins, 1986.
