Water

What comes to mind when you think of water?

How does water do things?

Water gives.  She gives life and she gives abundance. 

Notice the small drops of dew in the morning, and notice the vastness of the ocean that teems with living.  Notice the flowers blooming and the fruit ripening.  And be thank ful.  Smile, breathe deeply, and notice how she runs inside you too.  Notice your heartbeat, remember that as she is seventy per cent of creation, she is seventy per cent of you too.  Feel the pull of the moon, creating tides inside as you watch the sea sigh in and out on the beaches below you.

Water is generous.  She allows herself to be managed.  She willingly fills a vase to nurture flowers and a dish for birds to bathe.  She flows effortlessly from one to another, obligingly taking the shape asked of her.  She lets herself be mixed with sugar before filling a bottle to feed the tui and bell birds.  She lets tea steep into her so we might delight in the fragrance and flavour of Lady Gray.  She collects herself from the roof and gutters into water tanks and allows herself to be      captured for another day, waiting patiently for the moment she is wanted, ready to gift herself, pour herself out, the moment she is asked.

 Do we realise she is a gift?  For we don’t own her, cannot predict her, and can’t contain her when she chooses to be free.  Rain can be a flood, land can be saturated, soil can slip, and what then?  Are we angry?  Do we wish her away?  And is it because she listens that our careful conservations slowly slips away, and we find ourselves begging for her to return?

Water gives..  She gives life and she gives abundance.

And we are small enough that we should remember not to take her for granted or think that she can be owned.  Look back, look now, look ahead; look in three dimensions,.  See the flow and the patterns, and see their inevitability.  However much we might wish otherwise, the flow will       continue, the story has been told, the path is written, and that path is  bigger than me, bigger than my singular comprehension.

I wonder what I can learn?

I wonder how Elaine does things?