Praying with the Elements for Advent: Week 3: Water

Needed this week: Small bowl of water

Reflecting on the Infinite, we celebrate the element of Water; in our bodies, in our world, and in our hearts. In gratitude for the sacred element of water, we honor the direction of the west, the season of autumn, of quiet rain, the vast dark seas, the ocean in our blood and bodies. Water is new life, as our bodies are reborn each day, cell by cell.

When the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago,a collision birthed our moon. It became the calendar for our ancestors. Its body lures the oceans into an eternally swaying dance.

From the beginning, the sun has gently carried millions of gallons of water into the air through evaporation to make rain and snow to feed the parched lips of all life. Water, sometimes patiently, sometimes violently, carves the features into our mountains and valleys.

The vast sacred oceans were the womb for life on this planet. “Water is the raw material of creation, the source of life. When the waters break, the child is born from them, just as the gods of old parted the dark, primeval ocean and fashioned the Earth, just as the first land creatures struggled up out of the tide.”[i] We carry the ocean within our bodies onto land like a vast terrestrial ocean.[ii] Our bodies contain up to 40 liters of water.

The Great Unravelling is causing the oceans to acidify. The seas to rise. Fish are being harvested so fast, that most of our large fish may be extinct by the end of this century. There are millions of people without access to clean drinking water.

Participation/Response:

[A chalice is distributed. Touch water, or wash hands and say a word or phrase that is elicited by the element of Water.]

Meditation: [Focus on the pulse, the mouth, and the eyes.]

[i] David Suzuki. The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering our Place in Nature (Vancouver: Grey Stone Books, 2007), 82.

[ii] David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance, 83.