Water is sacred.
You probably know this already.
Afterall, 75% of your body is made up of water.
You know what else? Trees are made up of 75% water too.
Water is in your blood, your brain cells, your saliva and your tears. You were created and birthed in an amniotic sac filled with water.
You can live a month without food, but just a week without water.
Connection to a water source has been the source of community creation for thousands of years. It’s a source of nourishment, sign of access to food, and the transfer of goods and people through its ability to move.
In the energetic and earth medicine space, water is connected to empathy, emotion, and embodied intuition. Water is a carrier of energy and feelings and it can hold so much. Water teaches us how to release our emotions, how the depths can serve us as we expand, and how to replenish ourselves to cultivate resilience.
We live in such a modern world – with toilets that flush with ease and taps that produce water within an instant of turning them on.
In our privileged access to water, many of us have lost our deeper connection to and reverence of its very existence.
So how can we reconnect to water and deepen our relationship with it?
Care for your lands. Keep your water clean and support organizations who do the same.
In ancient cultures, wells were decorated and altars were placed nearby to show gratitude and respect to the waters. In ancient Europe, the sacred Hawthorn tree (which was the tree to stand under during a wedding ceremony and to conceive a baby near) was planted near wells.
If you live near a well or source of water (like a river or reservoir), consider creating an altar next to it or leaving an offering to show gratitude.
What I’ve been trying to do is thank my water when I bathe, flush the toilet, cook, or wash my clothes. I remind myself the water has journeyed a long distance – from the sky to the rivers to the reservoir to the pipes that bring it out the tap whenever I turn it.
I thank it for my life. The water that surrounds me and is within me.
I also researched where my water primarily comes from to form a deeper connection with it.
Where I live, 75% of my water comes from rainwater captured on the mountain I live just next to – called Mt. Tamalpais. When I learned that (from a simple google search), I felt a powerful resonance in my body. To be able to wake up, walk outside, and look up at the mountain watershed that nourishes me feels like such a beautiful blessing.
So I decided to paint a little reminder to myself – using my beloved watercolor paints.
I painted my mountain, wrote out a little blessing, and cut the paper to fit an extra frame I had lying around – placing the frame just above our kitchen sink. I’m going to make one for our toilet next.
There’s more I can do to create deeper awareness of and honoring of my source of water – but this feels like a really tangible first step that I encourage you to join me in.
I want to hear from you!
Did you look up your source of water? Tell me what it is! How else can you honor the sacred waters in your life?
Leave a comment below.
I want to credit and thank my teacher, Liz Migliorelli, whose class The Folk Medicine & Magic of Old Europe was incredibly helpful in my research and understanding of this vast topic. This work is inspired by that class.