As you read this, consider where you have most recently had personal contact with water. It might be the shower or bath you just took; washing your hands in a sink; drawing water in a glass to drink, or to put into the coffee pot or a pan for oatmeal. It might be the sound of rain outside, or the flow of water through a hose-pipe to water plants and vegetables in your garden. Perhaps you drew water to supply your pets. Maybe you just flushed a toilet.
Every contact that we make with water–without exception–is direct contact with something most important that sustains us. It is difficult to conceive of water, in any form, that does not sustain our very lives except for maybe a flood or destructive storm, and yet, it is so easy for us to take it for granted. Even the floods and storms ultimately add their benefits to the earth. Let this moment, today, at whatever time you read this, be the moment when “taking for granted” transforms into “offering gratitude.”
Take a few intentionally deep breaths. Let your mind go to that most recent contact with water. Allow yourself to see how that water is even now working to sustain your life. Allow yourself to see, even if by power of imagination, how your life–so sustained by this water–may go on today to offer help and sustenance to others. Who are those others? How will you be of help to them? Once that is clear, offer your gratitude to the water that sustains you, and through you, others.
You can make this meditation as short or as long as you need to. You can trace your life’s activity into the lives and activities of others and pause, at each one, to thank water for sustaining you. You may only have time to trace that connection once. You may take it beyond or return to this little meditation throughout the day–each time you encounter water. Bring your meditation to an end by smiling at water and all that it sustains in your life’s influence.
Bob Patrick
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