sips and drops of blessing
Saturday, May 8, 2010 at 11:18 AM “The element of water connects us to a sacred web across the globe and invites us into acts of blessing, pouring forth love and grace to the world around us and receiving it in return.” -- Christine V. Paintner
I’ve often thought of the air we breathe as being connected to everyone in the world. My neighbor in Puerto Rico inhales the same air that flowed from my Seattle home, across the United States and then south to the Caribbean. In my mind, it moves on around the world across Europe and Asia, crossing the Pacific and then back home again.
Air flows freely and although it may feel stagnant for periods of time, it is still fluid – as is water. While water may not be the exact same body flowing directly from one place to another, there is still the possibility and invitation to connect across the globe - if only in our heart and imagination. When I ponder my flowing tears dropping into a stream that flows toward the ocean which moves via gulf stream, I can witness a piece of myself touching the woman in Africa who washes her clothes on a rock while bending over a muddy river. Perhaps it is the same water melted from the Polar ice cap, evaporated, blown through the clouds and poured out on a different continent half way around the world.
While I am clearly no scientist, I do know that water changes shape and form and has a unique path of its own. What would it be like to consider water in the way Christine describes as “acts of blessing, pouring forth love and grace to the world around us”? Personally, I love the image of blessings passed through sips and drops of water.
photo © lucy - Ireland, 2009
Breath, Social Justice, Water
Reader Comments (4)
I also love to think about how the air we breathe connects us across time, too.
I am breathing in some molecules that Virginia Woolf or Rumi or Martha Graham breathed in. :)
I have often thought one could teach a whole semester chemistry course on the subject of water. It is a fascinating chemical.
Just think of the way water flows between your fingers. It does not separate into fragments like salt, but somehow remains intact. Gentle as the rainwater, yet it can grind rocks into sand. It refreshes and cleanses, bathes every cell of our bodies, yet when frozen can support a truck. Unlike other liquids, water expands when it freezes so that icebergs float upon the ocean and eventually melt to influence our climate. Colourless in a glass, but water turns blue under glacial conditions. It has the longest liquid range of any substance I am aware of, allowing us a range of temperature in which to live and grow. Three tiny atoms bonded into one simple, bent molecule ... very much a blessing.
ccr - yes, yes, the breathing in across time is powerful!!!
barbara - oh, you've offered much more fodder for my mind to ponder. thanks for sharing these added perspectives on water. very much a blessing!!!!
To think of one time, a special hour, when friends across the globe would breathe that very same air and bless it together...
So much to do, everything so beautiful.