Today is the annual Blog Action Day when thousands of bloggers around the world unit to write about one crucial issue. This year we are addressing the need for clean water.

I’ve chosen to focus on water in a Christian context. Water is mentioned continually throughout the Bible, in both literal and metaphorical ways. From the poetry of the creation myth in Genesis, to the psalms praising all creation, to the language and imagery of Christ as living water, it underpins all of biblical life.

Listen, Oh heavens, and I will speak; hear, oh earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching fall like the rain and my words descend like the dew, like showers on the new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.

Deuteronomy 32:1-2

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants

Isaiah 44:3

Image by Hamed Saber

You care for the earth, you give it water,
you fill it with riches.
Your river in heaven brims over
to provide its grain.

And thus you provide for the earth;
You drench its furrows,
you level it, soften it with showers,
you bless its growth.

Psalm 64: 10-11

We are graced with such abundance and such goodness.

There’s another passage:

Is it not enough for you to feed on good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?

Ezekiel 34:17-18

For there to be enough clean water for all the living things that need it, we must make some changes.

One of the best changes we can make is to stop buying bottled water. Although I reuse each bottle until it starts to crack I do still buy water in plastic bottles. Now I’ve got myself a totally reusable bottle and I’m using it.

Did you know that each year in the United States, creating the plastic bottles for bottled drinking water takes enough oil and energy to fuel a million cars? Yes you read that right, and I’m sure the figures are similar here in the United Kingdom.

Check out this video by Annie Leonard:

We can all take action to reduce water consumption in all sorts of ways. So let’s do it.

Main image by Steve Jurvetson

Elsewhere:

The Blog Action Day site is here. Find out more about issues around water and poverty here at WaterAid. You know about your carbon footprint – here’s how to calculate your Water Footprint. And returning to our theme of sacred water, here’s a thoughtful article by Jewish Contemplatives on water and prayer.

I’m delighted today to publish a guest post by Marian Van Eyk McCain, editor of a new book GreenSpirit, Path to a New Consciousness. Marian has long been one of my favourite writers and I was happy to meet her in real life a few weeks ago and spend time in her beautiful corner of the English countryside. Over to you, Marian:

Another of those gardening catalogues just came. I am forever taking myself off mailing lists but somehow it keeps happening. This one is from the firm that sold me the little fig tree I blogged about last year so they have my address again.

I leaf through the pages as I eat my breakfast. Colour co-ordinated flower beds…shades of blue…or would you prefer shades of pink? Eeek!! Forget it! This is my garden, for goodness’ sake, not my living-room. (Mind you, my living-room is not exactly colour co-ordinated either, I have to tell you. Well why should it be? It is a living room, not a showroom.)

Nature, where I live, is not colour-co-ordinated. Yet everything Nature creates without human intervention, like this tangle in the hedgerow, this glorious, riotous, multi-hued tangle, goes together perfectly. Nature is messy. Life is messy.

Was it because those 19th and 20th Century philosophers had fantasies of ‘taming’ Nature that they so admired the neat and tidy? Think about Victorian gardens, their straight paths, their topiary, their forced, unnatural symmetry. No, that’s not for me. I don’t see beauty in that. Just a misguided desire for control: an overweening arrogance. It is the arrogance that brought us to where we are today, on the brink of environmental freefall as the strain on our ecosystems takes them to a tipping point from which they may never be able to recover.

When I look at the tangle in the hedgerow I see beauty, vibrancy, the life force made abundantly manifest. Messy? Sure.

In fact, as we now know, the process of evolution has always needed—and still needs—messiness.

Complexity theorist Jean Bee, one of the contributors to the new book GreenSpirit: Path to a New Consciousness, writes:

Complexity theory has arisen, over more than half a century, out of the work of many scientists and social scientists who seek to investigate the implications of embracing the world as messy, interconnected, open to influences and change, able to learn…Essentially, this work tells us that:

• Things interrelate, affect each other in a messy, complex, systemic fashion
• Variation and diversity are necessary for creativity, change, evolution, emergence
• Things build on the past, but not with clear one-to-one correspondences and cause-effect relationships
• There is more than one possible future; the future cannot be reliably predicted from the past
• At key moments or tipping points, radically new features and characteristics can emerge
• Top-down design and control will certainly have an effect, but may lead to unintended outcomes

Systems which are diverse, richly connected and open to their environments can evolve a sort of form, or patterning, and this may be more harmoniously in tune with its surroundings that one imposed from above.

This emerging worldview, which seems more in tune with our personal experience of life, creates a powerful new image for all sorts of institutional thinking, including spiritual traditions. It is itself paradoxical and uncertain in that we are less clear how to act, how to intervene. Does it mean there should be no design, no leadership, no control? Is emergent structure always helpful and generative? Might we not just sink into chaos and disorder? Indeed, are our current problems the result of too much control or not enough? It raises issues of ethics, of the politics of participation, of power and domination. There are no easy answers. But imagining that the world is predictable and controllable when it is not is not helpful either; our current economic, social and environmental crises are, perhaps, ample evidence of that.

So we shall, as the contributors to this book suggest, try new ways of being in this 21st Century. We shall search for solutions to the problems that beset us. We shall build new infrastructures. With any luck, we ourselves shall continue to evolve, at least in terms of our awareness, our consciousness our understanding of who and what we are in relation to the rest of Nature. We shall, I hope, finally rid ourselves of the arrogance that has led us so far astray.

Who knows what interesting tangle will result? Let’s hope it is green and lovely and full of vibrant life.

All images by Marian Van Eyk McCain

About Marian:

Marian Van Eyk McCain is the author of three non-fiction books, including The Lilypad List: 7 steps to the simple life (Findhorn Press, 2004), a primer for living simply and lightly on the planet.

She is Co-Editor of the GreenSpirit Journal and Editor of GreenSpirit: Path to a New Consciousness (O Books, 2010), a new anthology with a Foreword by Satish Kumar and contributions from Brian Swimme, Matthew Fox, David Korten, Stephan Harding, Cormac Cullinan, Chris Clarke and nineteen other writers. (The book is being launched in London on Wednesday July 14th by Jonathon Porritt – click here for details.)

Marian’s main website, which reflects her keen interest in ‘green and conscious aging’ is at Elderwoman.

The following post is my contribution to this year’s Blog Action Day. It should have been published last Thursday while I was away but the pre-scheduled publishing I set up didn’t work!

Helpless?

If you Google the phrase “climate change”, you will get 48,000,000 hits. If you read the news over a few months, you’ll get what feel like as many different opinions: the climate is changing; no it isn’t, the planet goes through cyclical changes naturally; mankind is the cause of climate change; or not; climate change has already happened; no it hasn’t; it will be irreversible in six months, six years, 60 years, never; it’s already irreversible; it’s a problem, but science will come up with a solution, it always does.

This sort of confusion, and a certain amount of sensationalism, turns us off. It frightens us, it makes us feel helpless.

But I think we’d have to be irrationally trusting to conclude there’s nothing to worry about. We’re holding our future up to ransom.

The climate is changing

Here’s what a recent Save the Children report has to say:

The consensus on climate change is clear: it is already happening and is likely to lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. It will be people in the poorest countries, especially children in those countries, who will bear the brunt of these disasters, despite having played no role in causing climate change. The resulting impact on children is likely to be dramatic.

• Malaria, currently responsible for the death of around 800,000 children under five years old in Africa each year, is set to increase.
• The number of children dying each year due to the effects of malnutrition – currently 3.5 million – is likely to increase.
• As a result of slow-onset or recurrent natural disasters, parents may feel compelled to withdraw their children from school or send them out to work.

What we can do

So what can we do? Here’s one suggestion, from the World Wildlife Fund:

We can change the way we think, and we can change the way we act. Small changes made by enough people become cumulative and are incredibly powerful.

Why not start by calculating your carbon footprint. There are lots of sites where you can do this. Here’s one.

What else can we do? Here are some concrete suggestions. They’re not new, you’ve probably heard them before. How about picking three to begin with?

• Turn off the light when you leave a room
• In winter, turn the central heating thermostat down a couple of degrees and keep warm by wearing jumpers
• Don’t leave the water running while you clean your teeth
• Don’t leave any electrical device on standby, switch it off
• Cut back on meat and dairy
• Even if you only have a window box, grow a few herbs and vegetables
• Boil only enough water for what you need
• Holiday locally and/or travel by train, fly as little as possible

Then there’s the vexed and serious question of the car. If you must run a car (I do, at the moment), there are many things you can do to mitigate the effect at least in part: plan carefully so you don’t make unnecessary journeys, keep the tyre pressure correct, drive more sedately.

Friends of the Earth have an excellent guide to practical steps we can all take, including lots of information for the driver. You can download their 50 Top Tips here.

Political action

So there are personal habits we can change. But political impact is important as well. Why not choose one of the major environmental charities and join them. Support them financially and if you can, get involved with a local group as well and actually do stuff. Write to your Member of Parliament or Congressional representative. Write to newspapers. If you’re an employee, ask your company what their policies and practices are on environmental issues.

Becoming an activist is not that difficult, and even sounds rather glamorous, n’est pas? You can download a guide here.

It’s tough but not impossible – yet

Writing this post and researching the links has been easy. Taking action is tough. But let me repeat what I said above:

Small changes made by enough people become cumulative and are incredibly powerful.

If you’ve written a Blog Action Day post, do leave me a note in the comments.

Image by asrainman

Elsewhere:

Here are some useful links:

• Guardian newspaper Climate Change Q&A
• BBC Climate Change site
• Explaining climate change to children
• Informed views and ideas from Casaubon’s Book
• Colin Beavan’s seminal blog No Impact Man

If you have a cat and a garden you will probably be used to the occasional loving gift from your kitteh: a bird with its insides artfully displayed, a headless frog, a generous supply of small rodents.

Yesterday the little dead mouse above was waiting for me when I went downstairs. (The picture is some fun I had with Cottage Arts’ free downloads for digital scrapbooking. I enjoyed the macabre contrast of the little corpse with the rather over-pretty scrapbooking elements.)

Usually I just dispose of my “gifts”, but for some reason I got to wondering about this little mouse.

My book on animal totems tells me mouse is about attention to detail. So I thought I’d take a detailed look at this creature. Using my magnifying hand lens*, I gazed carefully at the tiny body. How incredibly delicate were its tiny pink feet, the intricate folds of its ear. The fur shading from brown to dark grey to almost white, with slight gradation on each individual hair. The tail: I always thought mice had bald tails but now I could see it was covered with fine hairs which stood at a slight angle from the skin.

It was unexpected, this microscopic gift of richness.

I wonder how often we ignore the opportunity to really see what’s around us, and what we miss by passing by.

What do you need to look at more closely?

Image: my photograph in digital montage

Elsewhere:

*I really recommend these little magnifying lenses. Small enough to slip in a pocket when you’re out walking, they can reveal an entire world of wonder in a pinpoint of drab flower head (reminds me of Dame Julian’s hazelnut). They are inexpensive – this is the one I bought. I have a feeling I first read about them in Marian’s book Lilypad List.

And just because you’re looking at interesting things on the ground, don’t forget to look up at the sky.

One great thing I find about not being in regular employment is having to look more deeply at what’s happening in me emotionally.

This morning I woke feeling melancholy and blue. I didn’t get out of bed until 10.30 a.m. I don’t propose to bore you, dear reader, with the reasons behind this little episode. What I find interesting is that if I had had to get up, get on the train and go to work I would have done. I would have put on my mask of jollity and professionalism and I would have bullied myself out of my mood.

Instead, I was able to sink into it, to unravel the strands of what was happening and allow them to re-knit into a different pattern.

In turn that allowed me, later, to step into my massively overgrown autumnal garden and marvel at the beauty:  the banked fires of a huge pyracantha; the last blush and scent of climbing roses; the honeysuckle scrambling through towering brambles to meet the wild blackberries that have colonised my flower beds; bees gathering nectar from mint flowers; a ladybird contemplating the last of my tomatoes, which will not now ripen and which I will make into pickle later today.

We have to work to live, and if we’re lucky we enjoy our work. Being dependent on state handouts and/or worried about money long-term is a rotten, destructive way to live. But I also think it’s too easy to allow our jobs to give us an excuse not to do the sort of inner work we need in order to grow. When we’re busy we can too easily ignore those little cues that tell us to adjust our course. We can too easily take for granted the beauty all around us, and ignore the ugliness which calls for us to take action.

Thinking all this, I went back into the garden with heavy padded gloves and secateurs and snipped a little bunch of autumn glory to add to the garden altar I keep on a shelf by my back door. I realised my mood had been transformed from melancholy to deep joy.

What cues do you need to listen to?

Image: my photograph above of my garden altar today

Elsewhere:

Sue (writing from Australia where it’s spring, not autumn) has a great quote by Wendell Berry underpinning her own observations on the other side of freedom, here. And go check out the full moon dream boards from earlier this week at Jamie’s place. I didn’t do one this month but seeing all this gorgeousness, I wish I had.

Photograph by Abbey of the Arts

It was poetry party day at Abbey of the Arts yesterday – the Autumnal Equinox Edition. Christine invites us to contribute a reflection on the beauty of the fall. I hope you’ll go over and add your contribution if you haven’t already. Here’s mine:

The gate to the next path
on the yearly journey
stands wide and welcoming.

Lit softly, smothered
with crisp bright garlands.
The golden dark lane

invites me through richness
toward the bare, drifting
bone-deep beauty to come.

For the first time in my life I had a consultation with a medical herbalist on Saturday. (I have a recurring digestive problem which I’m fed up taking conventional drugs for.)

I’m not about to tell you I’m instantly cured, but what an interesting experience the consultation was.

Although my regular doctor is actually very good and accessible, he’s always rushed. The consultation with the herbalist was quite different. For a start, it took over an hour. He asked all about my life, going back to childhood illnesses, family medical history, what I do for a living, what I do in my time off, my diet, whether I have any skin problems, whether I meditate, sleep patterns, all kinds of stuff.

In the end he mixed me up a herbal tincture which I’m taking three times a day. We’ll have to see if it works, but I’m hopeful. He also gave me lots of free advice about foods to avoid, herbals teas to drink and how long to let them brew for. The whole thing was relatively inexpensive, although I appreciate there are many who could not afford it. I’m very privileged.

It just struck me how little time conventional medicine gives to talking about the whole person, body mind and spirit. And how we’ve learned to expect an instant fix for specific symptoms.

And maybe that extends to other areas of our lives. For example, many of us go to church on Sundays to pray, work to earn money, go to the gym to exercise our bodies, drink with our friends to have fun. There’s such separation in our lives.

The whole experience with the herbalist got me thinking about this separation and how it might be possible to be more whole in our living.

Where do you find wholeness in your life?

Photo of medieval herb garden by JL2003

The June full moon shines tonight, known as the Rose Moon. Not difficult to see why, when roses are blooming all around. I love them, especially climbers and scramblers. Here are four from my garden, taken in full bloom this week:

Pour toi: a sweet smelling scrambler with masses of miniature flowers.

New Dawn: a repeat-flowering climbing rose with, sadly, only a slight scent.

Cadfael: a peony-headed rose with huge flowers. It currently needs rescuing from wild grasses and nettles!

Shropshire Lad: a heavily scented climber that scrambles over an arch across my front path and greets me when I come home.

Aren’t they beautiful? To end, something I found in Christine’s Blossoming zine:

What God whispered to
the rose to make it
bloom so beautifully
God shouted to my
heart times
one hundred!

Rumi

Today I’m plugging an organisation I recently joined called GreenSpirit. This is from their website:

GreenSpirit is a network of people who celebrate the human spirit in the context of our place in the natural world and Earth’s own evolutionary journey. Our radical vision brings together the rigour of science, the creativity of artistic expression, the passion of social action and the wisdom of spiritual traditions of all ages. Attracting those of many faith traditions, we are a body of people who believe that human life has both an ecological and a spiritual dimension.

Well I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty good to me and encapsulates the way I’m increasingly trying to live.

GreenSpirit has been primarily a UK-based organisation, but they have just launched an associated social networking site, which is beginning to attract members from the States and elsewhere (you have to be a GreenSpirit member to join).

They are not a large organisation – you will see from their main website that it has loads of resources but lacks the gloss (and advertisements) of big commercial charities.

I think they have a lot of very important things to say, so why not consider joining up? It costs £24 a year.

Photocredit: PinkMoose

I fear this is not going to be a cheerful post!

The moment came yesterday evening while checking the news that I really began to fear we have already gone too far in destroying this planet to recover. There were two of many frightening news items that hit me.

The first was simply one of those almost everyday items on the rising price of oil. Yesterday it was up to a record $135 a barrel. How many more wars will be fought over oil as it becomes scarcer and more expensive? Yet air travel is growing, and so is demand for oil from both the West and developing nations.

The second was the dramatic news of huge new cracks in the Arctic ice, together with footage showing the stunning extent of the problem. Changes in the Arctic are happening far faster than scientists predicted:

We’re seeing very dramatic changes; from the retreat of the glaciers, to the melting of the sea ice.

We had 23% less (sea ice) last year than we’ve ever had, and what’s happening to the ice shelves is part of that picture.

Dr Luke Copland of the University of Ottawa

So how do we deal with the fear that it may be too late? How do we cope with naysayers who still doubt the obvious truth of global warming, and those (including ourselves) who put profit and posessions before the lives of our children and the life of our planet? How do we change our own way of living and influence our own governments and those of other nations? Is there even any point in trying?

At times like these I try to remember Julian of Norwich: All will be well and all manner of things will be well. And of course we can’t just give up, we must continue to try. And we must try joyfully, because living with joy is what we’re called to.

And what a world it is in which we are called to live joyfully:

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open
and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is the dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

This World, by Mary Oliver