Spiritual Healing for our Earth and the Waters

I finally brought myself to watch Gasland this past week…(4 years after it was made)

Even though I’m totally grateful that people are creating these documentaries to teach us about what’s going on in our world, I have a tendency to avoid them. It’s just too much for my empathic spirit to stomach. In fact, after watching it the other night I cried my eyes out, tossed and turned all night and woke up with a terrible stomach ache.

So, as you can understand, these educational whistle blowing films are not my first choice for fun family entertainment.

The reason we finally watched it is because my 11 year old daughter has heard about fracking and wants to take action to stop it. It worries her that it’s happening so close to home and supposedly has such devastating effects on the water, land, air, people, animals and plants around it. So we’re starting to study it to learn what’s really going on and what can be done about it. Gasland was our first step in our investigation.

The Waters are Wounded

One of the reasons this film affected me so deeply is because of the devastating impact this process has on water. Water is the source of all life on this planet and, for over a decade, I have been taught by my elders and guides to honor and revere water as the most sacred expression of the Divine in this physical world.

Through my spiritual studies and my own practice of learning to live sustainably in the desert I have come to know Water as the master teacher and healer she is. (I attribute a feminine essence to water even though, of course, she’s beyond the confines of human gender) She is the one that can cure all ailments and revive all that is withering. She cleanses and purifies all that has been defiled. She’s soothes and eases all that is burdened.

But what happens when the water itself is burdened and defiled beyond repair?

Hundreds of toxic chemicals and flammable gases mixed with some of the last clean fresh water on the planet to the point that it literally becomes toxic waste and can lit on fire coming out of the tap. Millions of gallons needed for each fracking operation. Thousands of frack wells right here in the US and thousands more around the world. Groundwater supplies ruined beyond use to the point that the people and animals exposed to this water are loosing their hair, experiencing extreme symptoms of degeneration and being diagnosed with rare forms of cancer.

A Healing that Defies Logic

It is in considering circumstances like these when the prophecy of Grandfather Stalking Wolf (Tom Brown Jr.’s Apache elder and teacher) comes into focus for me. He warned Tom Brown that once we had passed by certain thresholds of damage our Earthly ecosystems would no longer be able to be healed by normal physical means. The specific thresholds he prophesized occurred in the 1980s. He said, that if we hadn’t changed our ways by then, the healing of our Earth would have to be a spiritual healing. 

When I think of what we know about the scientific nature of water and the chemicals it’s being contaminated with and then consider the extent of the contamination it seems obvious to me that we have indeed passed the point of physical healing. How could we possibly clean up this mess by physical means?

This predicament takes this teaching from Albert Einstein to a whole new level for me… “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

So how do we do it differently? What is even meant by a “spiritual healing”?

I don’t know…but I do know that I’m drawn to the magic and the mystery of the water. The miracle that water even exists at all. Her enduring patience and perseverance. Her humility and grace. Her fierce power. I believe in her in a way that exceeds logic.

Praying for the Waters

I’m a dedicated advocate for taking responsibility to care for the waters in a physical way. To keep them clean and learn how to care for and respect them in our daily life. I try to take care of the water in my personal life and teach my daughter to do the same. I’m also a HUGE supporter of the good people who are fighting for the protection of the waters…the fractivists and ecologists who are doing their best to keep corporate interests at bay. But I feel the need to extend myself beyond these physical means and into prayer to truly do my part.

I’ve been taught that the grandmothers of many of the original peoples prayed over the water every day. They sang to the water and paid her their deepest respect. They knew, even then when the waters ran clean, that their prayers and reverence were needed and called for.

Over the past several years I’ve taken to doing this myself. Each day I take a moment to honor the water and give thanks to her. I am blessed to live in a place where the waters run free and clean and wild right down the mountainside. It is a miracle of profound beauty. So, in addition to giving thanks to her I imagine the purity and wild freedom of this water extending out across the planet, nourishing and reviving all our relatives. I picture the waters of the world running free, unbound by dams and obstructions, free of chemical contaminants, sparkling, fresh and aLIVE.

I pray for a miraculous healing…a cleansing of the waters and revival of ALL life that transcends the limitations of rationality and conventional science…I pray for a spiritual healing.

Please take a moment to make a prayer to the waters of the world. 

The water in West Virginia…the water off the coast of Japan…the water near Fracking operations and slaughter yards…the water running in streams and rivers and rocking in the ocean…the water in the wombs of all the pregnant mammal mamas around the world…the water in your veins and tear ducts and in your cells and in the air around us…It’s all connected and it’s all sacred. 

Let’s hold this water in our hearts and envision it running clear and supporting a healthy web of life. Let’s pray that every plant, animal and human has access to the pure water they need to nurture their wellbeing. Let’s ask for the guidance we need to care for the waters, honor them, respect them and learn from them…Let’s pray for the protection and restoration of this essential element of life.

For thousands of years people have prayed for the waters everyday…when the waters all ran clear the people honored the waters with prayer and gratitude as a daily practice. Now, in these recent generations as we’ve forgotten to pray, the water suffers. Let’s pray ourselves back into relation with this sacred water of life…Minni Wakan Wiconi, as it is called in Lakota…and feel how much we appreciate her once again.