Celebrating the wonder of water in and around World Water Day
World Water Day, which is held each year on 22 March, gives us all a focal point to celebrate, and demonstrate our gratitude for, the many gifts this sacred element continues to give us.
In our work for our waterways, we consider it key that we reach beyond solely their physical protection, but also remembering our sacred relationship with them, as we are reminded to by indigenous peoples around the world, and as it once was in these lands, in times long past.
So to build on the activities our Water Warriors working group began last September with ‘Back to Source’ ceremonies honouring our local rivers on World Rivers Day, we plan to host a couple of very special online events next week too.
Beginning with Gratitude
The first will be “Honouring our Waters“ Despacho ceremony at 2pm on Sunday 20 March, the day of the Spring Equinox. The aim here is to express our gratitude to, and enhance our connection with, the waters by sending our healing prayers to this sacred element, which is so vital to life.
A Despacho is a traditional Andean ceremony and will be hosted by Karen Weinman, a shamanic practitioner trained by the Q’ero peoples in Peru. It will involve creating a mandala composed of symbolic materials & biodegradeable ingredients to make our prayers visible, before releasing them to do their work.
Celebrating the Gift of Water
The second event, entitled ‘The Feast of Flow’, will be a fun festival of words and music that will also make you think. The idea is that we all bring along our songs, stories, poems and other creative offerings, together with our favourite food and drinks, to honour the sacred waters and the bounty she makes possible.
Taking place from 7-10pm on Friday 25 March, The Feast will be hosted by shamanic medicine woman Carina Johansson and singer, songwriter and storyteller Joanie Bones.
Honouring all our Waterways
We will also be looking create a short video montage in homage to the water, where all of our waterways, lakes and seas are named and honoured.
It is something that we began following the Back to Source day of sacred action, and would love to see it continue to develop and grow.
If you’d like to help this process, send us:
a photo or short video (less than 10 seconds) of your local river, lake or sea
an Mp3 sound recording of you saying the name of your local river, lake or sea
Email this to WaterWarriors@SacredEarthActivism.org.
Look forward to celebrating the wonder of water with you all next week,
Jonathan Weekes, co-founder, Sacred Earth Activism