Departures: Water Practice

Water invites us into a very simple practice today.

Water is our most basic point of departure.  The human being that we are began in water, the cellular fluids made up of our parents’ bodies.  The microscopic cellular beings that we began as took nourished and sheltered floating in womb’s water.  We developed bodies that are made up largely of water, require water, make water and cease to exist without water.  Our most basic point of departure as we become human beings, our very sustenance as living human beings is water.  When our bodies are allowed a natural process at death, we, in short order, liquefy as we return to the elements of the earth.

The practice for today is to take conscious notice of every time that you come into contact with water, outside yourself and inside yourself:  rain, shower water, drinks of water or other liquids, each time you urinate, water in the sink for dishes or cooking, washing your hands, watering the lawn or garden or potted plants, drawing water in a bowl for pets, tears–for any reasons, feeling your heartbeat which is pumping water through your body, the feelings of any emotion because emotions work via chemical and electrical processes in the body that would be impossible without the water network that we are, sneezes and coughs, as they are about using and moving water in and out of your body, and noticing your own breathing which invisibly pours out carbon dioxide and brings in oxygen, but empties and takes in water vapor as well.

Each time, today, that you make conscious contact with water, quietly or silently within yourself say:

This is water. I am water.  I give thanks to life-giving water.

You may want to begin the day and end the day with this little prayer-mantra:

I arise today through a mighty strength,

the three-fold gift of water:

the water of life, the water of death, and the water that joins all things.

This day I honor the rivers of life flowing in, around and through me,

clear as day, dark as the night, transforming to touch.

I arise today through a mighty strength,

the three-fold gift of water.

Holy well, well of life, flowing through the worlds.

Bob Patrick

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