Diving Deeper into Water

We are in awe of water. Did you know these amazing scientific facts about water?

• Some of the water on planet Earth originally comes from meteors and arguably also from comets!
• 97% of all water on earth is in the seas 
• 68% of freshwater is in the form of ice in the polar ice caps
• Anomalous expansion of water means water expands when cooled from 4°C to 0°C. This means ice insulates the water below, preventing it from freezing solid
• Water is commonly referred to as the ‘universal solvent’ it dissolves more substances than any other liquid, especially polar and ionic compounds
• Life, as we know it, cannot exist without water. 

The Practical

All the ways we use water. So far this morning, this unusually glorious early spring morning, I/we have respired, excreted, hydrated, washed and cleansed, watered plants and our farm cat, washed dishes, made cups of tea, all the time my/our dynamic bodies are circulating liquids. All around is water moving through trees, plants, animals, landscapes, water bodies, the air. As we plan the day we look at the weather forecast for heat, rain, sunny/overcast, and storms. After a hard Michigan winter we just turned on the irrigation on the farm. One spigot/outlet froze and cracked during a deep -20C+ freeze. Until that's fixed we’re wrangling large heavy hoses around watering soil and seedlings. Lots of time and effort in this but it needs to be done frequently and skilfully. Too little, too much or too late and the crop is a right off. It takes just one moment of dehydration, or period of inundation. 

We hydrate, wash, dilute, make solutions and distillations, constantly throughout each day. In our relatively regulated western domesticated environments water is regulated, convenient and available until emergencies and disasters occur. Or until we can't afford it. We’re asked to reduce/ration water use, and other times we’re sand-bagging our doorsteps as water rises after big storms - an increasingly common occurrence these days. Water had always been in flux/seasonal but is now increasingly erratic, with climate change extremes, exacerbated by urban sprawl and the proliferation of non-porous surfaces. 

The moral here is that all life is mostly water and our lives revolve around water. We are water.  And we are surrounded by, immersed in, water. Yet until something goes really wrong we take water for granted, and treat it as something mundane. Faced with excess, deficit, or polluted water we are reminded to have the deepest respect for water. 

Each of us has some form of catchment/watershed that we manage whether that is a regional landscape, a farm, garden, household and/or our own body/self. Each of us could practically, proactively manage water better through adopting some of the following practices. Here are some tips and tricks for managing water - 

1. Actively design landscapes and water systems so that they can be managed.
2. Protect water and water bodies from depletion, erosion, oxygen loss, species loss and pollution.
3. Protect and repair soils, organic matter, mulch, no dig, deep rip, don’t compact. Mulch almost everything!
4. Slow and harvest water through earthworks, ponds, water gardens, water tanks….
5. Revere and respect water.
6. Recognise different kinds and qualities of water.

Many people are increasingly concerned about the quality of water - the water we drink into our bodies, wash ourselves with, grow good food with, swim in and so on. On the surface this sounds rather privileged, but it’s not. PFAS, ecocides, microplastics, chlorine & fluoride, and more are in solution and entering all parts of the planet and all parts of our bodies. Some of us end up buying spring water or filtering water because we choose to not drink polluted water. 

We are drawn to the beauty of the edges of water. There is a Japanese garden design principle that we are drawn to the edges/ecotones of different interesting ecologies i.e. the meadow/forest, rocky cliff/sea, lake/field, river/forest, and so on. This edge is often a place of productivity in the permaculture worldview, ecological complexity in conservation and romantic beauty for most of us. It is also perhaps a safe place, the middle of a river, ocean or large lake might well feel less so. Same with a forest, desert, …. 

So when we make ornamental gardens, parks and nature-inspired landscapes, we play with these edge/ ecotones and the commonest arrangement would involve water bodies of ponds, lakes, rain gardens, streams, rivers, coastal places. Large landscaped manicured bodies of water also imply luxury, power, playfulness and control over nature. 

Senses of control over nature, though, are always an illusion. Most of us have experiences of danger, destruction and loss around drought and flooding. Whole towns remain traumatised by the New South Wales Northern Rivers 2022 flooding, and in many other places around the world. As said before, this is increasingly common with new records set daily around the world as the hyper-energised atmosphere jumps between extremes. Here in Michigan in the last two years, unforecast storms can pop up from nothing, skies blue/grey as sometimes tornados build. For 2 years in a row we’ve had 1-in-100 year rain events dumping over 4 inches of rain overnight suddenly. In 2023, a third of the farm went under water. This past year, after earthworks, re-shaping of the ground and re-allocation of crop fields, the damage was minimal. 

On the farm, in the garden and in our households, excess water will lead to fungal outbreaks on crops, and mould in our homes. Some of these pose serious threats to our health. The point here is that water is to be feared also. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a journey upstream into a foreboding African dense forest, and upstream into the darker aspects of myth and consciousness. Water is lifestyle for some, and it's a matter of life and death for most / all people & beings on our planet. 

The Magical  

Ivan Illich in H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness argues that in the western worldmind, water has been reduced to a substance that is inert, functional; a commodity to be rationed and used - transformed from a magical, enchanted, essential fluid and medium for all life; once revered, storied, a carrier of myths, symbols, feeling in a living world cosmology. 

Never before have a group of humans taken the symbolic/narrative meaning inherent in all the substances of our worlds, and removed them. In most times and places water is/has been seen/perceived to be more than a neutral commodity to be measured and controlled, as Illich says. It’s the same with trees, forests/woods, seas, rocks and mountains, says Schama in Landscape and Memory. All these, we believe, and in particular water, are alive and vital; magical things through which energy moves (Shauberger), emotions dwell (Emoto) and myths lurk (Schama). In pre-modern and First Nations cultures this would be self-evident.

Here we can look to the Biodynamics movement for an insight into the ‘aliveness’ of water; this is akin to the aliveness and vitality in healthy crops for instance. Victor Shauberger’s 1940’s writings and diagrams show the extraordinary ways that energy moves/spirals through water. Water is shown to behave in all sorts of ways, with vortices, laminar flow and other patterns of energy in water. When we energise water through the use of ‘flow forms’ we can perceive different qualities, the same with rapids and waterfalls. By contrast some water is stagnant, lifeless. This is similar to Deborah Bird Rose’s observation that landscapes can ‘shimmer’ with lifefulness. 

Masaru Emoto carried out experiments subjecting water to different emotions - friendly, supportive, abusive and so on. The water was then frozen and photographed; stunningly different ice patterns seemed to be created by the different emotions. The photography is graphic and inspires imagination. Though the scientific rigour is disputed by some, it is still a great story - and this is important - we do not need to subject myths, stories and symbolic representations, psychological imaginings and relationships to hard reductive scientific scrutiny and cancellation. 

Our world has always been populated with gods, goddesses, myths, symbols, stories, meaning and emotion. Water in all its states, already an impossibly remarkable substance, carried many of these. These associations (projections, foci) are now carried by TV, film, music and sport celebrities, on phones and other screens. Rather than seamlessly relating out to join the more-than-human in the wider world and cosmos, we now look in, down at our screens and the almost-completely-human and corporate. Florence Williams remarks that that the greatest human mass migration is taking place currently - from outdoors to indoors. 

Here are some the traditional symbolic associations with water, rivers, seas and ice bodies - 

• Life / source of life / life creation
• Purity / cleansing / renewal / rejuvenation
• The unconscious /underworld
• Seas - chaos / the unknown/ monsters / fear
• Female / Goddess 
• Ice - supernatural beings / survival / ancestors 

Pilgrimage to Brigid's Well in Kildare, Ireland. 

It’s Autumn in Ireland and we’re driving, in our new relationship, through magic, around moors, craggy coastlines, churches, graveyards, pubs, old trees, rolling hedged fields. It’s a kind of pilgrimage, us together, returning from our exiled Irish heritage and histories. 

Bridget from Michigan and Charlie lately from Australia both yearn for this ancestry. In the US, Irish identity is very alive, powerful and celebrated. In Australia, it’s a long way away, through tense and contested rough settler history. The point here is that for us to be in Ireland together is a special moment of ‘returning home’. It’s so exotic and yet so eerily familiar. My Aunt Kate welcomes us and gives advice on where to go, stay, and who to meet with. 

Bridget has, as long as she remembers, wanted to visit Brigid’s Flame and Brigid's Well. The nuns welcomed us to the former and then we went in search of the well. Asking at the local tourist information booth, we’re asked, in a very roundabout way, ‘Do you want the original one or the tourist one?’ Apparently, the old one is close to a busy road and many accidents have occurred there. Of course we haven’t come all this way for anything but the real Brigid’s Well. 

We park some way away, and carefully walk towards this thousands of years old actual and symbolic place. Already we’ve been almost overwhelmed in our travels by the prevalence of symbol-packed landscapes, buildings, churches, sacred trees. It’s that kind of place - and importantly we're receptive, desiring this enchanted world. Tucked under a Hawthorn hedge draped with prayer ties, is the well. A few other visitors are there too - appreciating, peering, touching the water, offering prayers, tossing in coins and other objects, asking for good luck and more. 

In a way it doesn't matter what it means. It’s a place that’s been visited by countless people and pilgrims. Between all these the water vibrates with, is imbued with sacred specialiness. The water shimmers - with power, unconscious intelligence, something transcendent beyond easy definition. A focal place for imagination, meanings, symbols and stories that connect us out into a rich, meaningful, cosmology. 

In Ireland, for us, it’s just there waiting to be re-connected with at Brigid’s well. And the many other magical water sources we have come across already, and those that we are yet to know in this life….

Curious to learn more about water and our water workshop? If you’re in Michigan this summer please check out our holistic workshop offering - ‘Water: The Practical & the Magical.’ If elsewhere, we’re happy to bring the workshop to your community, mentor and consult. ‘Water: The Practical & the Magical’ online workshop will be available later in the year and longer form offerings in-person are in the works. Stay tuned. 

Some Water References - 

Barton, Barbara J. (2018). Manoomin: The Story of Wild Rice in Michigan.

Beer, Amy-Jane (2022). The Flow: Rivers, Water and Wildness.

Emoto, Masaro (2004). Hidden Messages in Water.

Horvath, William. Water Management For Every Permaculture Farm. The Natural Farmer - Magazine of Northeast Organic Farming Association. https://www.thenaturalfarmer.org/post/water-management-for-every-permaculture-farm

Illich, Ivan (1985). H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness.

Nichols, Wallace J. (2014). Blue Mind.

Radford, Nick. Water Conservation Techniques. Bellingen Permaculture. https://www.bellingenpermaculture.com.au/water/22-water-conservation-techniques/

Rose, Deborah Bird (2017). “Shimmer: When All You Love is Being Trashed”. In A. L. Tsing, H. A. Swanson, E. Gan, & N. Bubandt (Eds.), Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene.

Schama, Simon (1995). Landscape & Memory.

Shaw, Martin (2022). Navigating the Mysteries. Emergence Magazine. https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/

Schauberger, Victor (1982). Living Water: Viktor Schauberger and the Secrets of Natural Energy.

U.S. Geological Survey. How Much Water is There on Earth? USGS Water Science School. https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/how-much-water-there-earth

Welsh, Cody. How Life Made the Extraordinary Transition from Water to Land. Medium. https://medium.com/everything-science/how-life-made-the-extraordinary-transition-from-water-to-land-bb71a6a92b1e

Williams, Florence. (2017). The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative.

Yeomans, P. A. (1994). Water for Every Farm: Yeomans Keyline Plan (4th ed.).