Western Gathering:
FGConnections Fall 2006
Living Water Cards
This water is from Barton Springs, a place that has sustained human beings for 30,000 to 40,000 years, and is now the pollution-threatened soul of the city of Austin, Texas. May the springs remain the eternal symbol of life, and hope.
This water comes from Lake Superior, the largest fresh water lake by area in the world. Duluth, MN and Superior, WI are located at the southwest tip of the lake. The source of our drinking water, it carries ships from all over the world to our shores. 50 documented ship wrecks lie in its graveyard. The lake is home to loons and other water birds and many varieties of fish. I watch the sun rise many mornings out of the lake and at night the moon also seems to come up from its waters. At times the fierce waves pound and crash.
Our living water comes from natural mineral springs of the Niagara Escarpment, where we live. This water supplies the well from which we get our drinking and washing water. As of now, it is clean and pure and plentiful, something of a miracle so near a large urban concentration. We pray it will continue.
This water is from Makkah (Mecca), Saudi Arabia, brought back after a pilgrimage. To me bringing the water here symbolizes a need for greater understanding and connection to Islam and the importance and need for water in the Middle East.
Some drops of ocean water from La Jolla, San Diego, California. Our meetinghouse is blocks from the ocean. Our city is squeezed between the desert and the ocean. This is the water that spoke to me.
My living water is from the birthplace of China’s civilizations, the Yangtze River. My hope is that this spot will be the birthplace of a greater civilization, one based on peace, equality and simplicity.
In the Lakota language, “Minnehaha” means “Laughing Water.” Minnehaha Creek flows through the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, over spectacular falls and into the Mississippi River. It plays an important role in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha.” The Mississippi River has been magical for me since I was a child in Ohio, hearing stories about it. I was thrilled to move to Saint Paul, MN partly because I could live near it. I celebrated this recent summer solstice by spending several hours on the Mississippi in a small bought.
Living water from a spring under Mount Eliza, Perth, Western Australia. Mt. Eliza is in the middle of the city of Perth, and is a national park right next to the Central Business District. The spring has provided cool fresh water since used by the Nyonga people, then the British settlers since 1897.
This water was lovingly collected from restored vernal pond on the grounds of my former farm, now a restored Native Grassland Preserve, which will provide habitat for the declining songbirds in central New Jersey.
This water is from Lincoln Creek, which runs most of the year in a ravine behind my house. It is sometimes splashing over its rocks, sometimes running quietly into its pools. In summer it almost entirely dries up. It joins Whatcom Creek downstream and this creek flows into Bellingham Bay, which is a northern extension of the Puget Sound.
Western Gathering
- Expanding Circles by Aimee Bucholz
- Listen and Obey the Spirit by Rubye Howard Braye
- Touching others … others touching us by John Helding
- Water Has Memory by Raelyn Joyce
- Living Water Cards
- Sailing to Gathering by Linda Hill and John Scull
- More Reflections from the Western Gathering
