SHOW OF (Virtual) HANDS: Compared to mountains or forests, how many of you would say water is your “go to” place for relaxation, inspiration, and rejuvenation?
Each of us knows water in an intimate and exquisite way. From a microscopic, fertilized egg, our imaginal cells began to develop surrounded by nourishing fluids for protection and buoyancy—water. Our eyes leak water when we are moved, or sad. Water was once our home as we evolved from water beings to land beings.
Today is World Water Day, and here in the Northern Hemisphere, we recently celebrated the first day of spring. It’s worth noting that what creates the bright rich greening of our gardens and trees is rainwater.
In Ireland, as in many places around the world, wells were—and are—sacred, often associated with the feminine qualities of the divine. Blessings and gratitude ceremonies are an essential way of demonstrating a philosophy of interconnectedness the Lakota call, Mitakuye Oyasin, “all our relations.” Water is life, and it is also kin.
I’m wondering: How are we treating our kin these days?
I’m asking because a few years ago, I was thrown into wakefulness by a dream. So real was this dream that I’ve held it close to me as a guidepost. Here is the dream:
I see an image of Jesus of Nazareth. He stands in front of me holding a blue plastic bucket. He hands me the bucket, looks at another person next to me and says, “Have the ‘other’ fill this bucket with water from your taps and your rivers, and I will drink from your creation.”
“Have the ‘other’ fill this bucket with water from your taps and your rivers, and I will drink from your creation.”
In the dream, it was clear to me there is no “other”— I am as guilty for the destruction of Earth as anyone else I might blame. And it was quite clear that he is not saying HIS creation; he is saying YOUR creation.
What do you do when you have a dream like that? How can it not change you?
The world we have created is one in which our rivers run swiftly with herbicides and pesticides, wastewater and fracking fluid. The oceans have been spoilt by cruise-ships that routinely open their valves and dump all their black (toilet) water into them. Our waters have lost 80%, (some would say 90%) of their biomass by the ravenous trawling nets of over-fishing, or from the North Pacific garbage vortex, filled with chemical sludge, plastic and debris that is larger than the state of Texas.
For centuries, indigenous peoples and farmers adhered to a technique called dowsing (also known as divining) to locate freshwater below Earth’s surface. They believed hidden water sources emitted specific energies and frequencies that could be picked up by a trained practitioner and a special tool.
Before a well was drilled on this land where my husband and I reside, Henry Swett, the driller, held out a divining rod—a Y-shaped stick of hazelwood, and walked the land. When the rod pulled down, that’s where he drilled. The flow of our well exceeds 100 gallons per minute. Henry said, “This flow can serve 20 homes.”
Your glass of water may look crystal clear, but it could in fact hold a universe of secrets, waiting to be discovered. Indeed, there is a burgeoning field of study called water consciousness. It first gained international attention with the unconventional but groundbreaking experiments of Japanese researcher Dr. Masaru Emoto.
In the 1990s, Emoto performed a series of experiments in which water was kept in a variety of bottles, each carrying a label with a different message. The messages ranged from positive and caring (thank you, love) to negative (I hate you; I want to kill you) and then drops of water from these bottles were placed on slides and deep-frozen to form snowflake-like crystals.
His findings were astounding. The crystals that formed on positive messages were found to be more geometric and aesthetically pleasing, while the crystals formed by water with negative messages were chaotic and frankly, ugly.
Today, Veda Austin has expanded the research and, with more than 10 years of observing and photographing the life of water, she believes that water is fluid intelligence, observing itself through every living organism on the planet and in the Universe.
It’s astounding, isn’t it? Still, some in my circles find this ridiculous and, to my mind, show a surprising lack of curiosity around this new science. Decide yourself.
Matt Thornton, CEO of The New Water Generation, says, “When we begin to understand water, the roadmap to ending all pollution will begin.”
I’m told by a friend whose husband is a lobsterman near me in Southern Maine how some lobstermen care so little about the ocean, their livelihood, that after changing out their engine oil, they dump the used oil into the sea.
So I ask the question: What IF? What IF we humans were to treat our waters everywhere as though Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed or Black Elk would bless them and then drink from them? And then I have another thought: “Isn’t a deer divine? Isn’t a bee divine? Isn’t all of creation divine, including ourselves? How have we lost this fundamental view of the sacredness of the life force and its ultimate source—water?
Given the high water-composition of the human brain and body, if water is in fact conscious and receptive to energy frequencies, how can our positive or negative thoughts affect our bodies on a molecular level? Ah! The moment when we have to choose “which one to feed” as in the story of the two wolves.
Martin Prechtel writes, “Always feed what needs feeding. Always make beauty.”
Probably—and paradoxically—the most important thing we can do to serve life starts with blessing our water every day.
I have a blue glass water bottle that I fill with well water, and I bless it. Then I place the bottle on a windowsill where it can absorb solar rays. Beneath the bottle is a copper ring, (copper being the highest frequency metal), and beneath that is a heart-shaped watercolor image with the words, “Blessed, hydrating water.”
Call me crazy, but the ceremonial pouring and drinking from this glass bottle of blessed water brings me into a reverence and gratitude for the present moment, for life itself.
On this International Water Day, when faced with daily decision-making, perhaps we can ask ourselves:
- How does this decision (I plan to make) serve my inner climate and the waters of my well-being?
- How does it serve my community?
- How does it serve life?
May the waters of life in your life flow freely.