Water-Walkers

Everyone enters this world with a gift. My grandmother's was to find water. She carried a tin cup that hung from a leather strap around her neck or waist. She was always filling it. "Kwens," she would tell me, "imagine what the world would be like if every woman prayed for the water; if every giver of life cared for what allows them to give life." For years I’ve been trying to imagine that, and occasionally I can see the purity, health and beauty.

Years ago, probably in the '70s, my grandmother began to warn that one day in the near future water would be sold in bottles for money. People heard her, but no one really listened. It has since happened. Now, forty years later, as she rocks in her chair and looks out the window she says, "in another forty years clean water will be the most expensive commodity on the face of this earth. It will be the oil of the future—political, contested and dark."

Sometimes it scares me to know my grandmother. Each of her stories settle in my bones and fills me with responsibility. "Kwens, my girl, when the water is sick, we are sick." Early one autumn morning, with that in my mind, I began to walk.

Silence. Some say it’s an unspeakable word, that its powerlessness. As I walked along the river, I heard her. Sometimes silence is not quiet, but rather a sound of separation from the world. People think something is quiet, powerless, but in reality it’s raging with noise that no one understands. So they ignore. That's how it is with the Mississippi, the Misiziibi—the long river. This sacred river flows thousands of kilometers. Without this river famine would spread throughout the mid-western part of North America. Hundreds of thousands would die. What is a river? An innumerable amount of water droplets, insignificant on their own, but a powerful life-supporting ecosystem together. The problem is some people look at the river and see only money or fame. They notice the merchant ships that flaunt and float its path. The tar sands boil in their blood. 

That morning I walked for many kilometers. As I rounded the river bend by the hunting grounds, I took a deep breath. I saw their fortress. Around 100 beaver damns spanned the river. I stood perfectly still as the shiny brown bodies dove and emerged with more sticks to pile into homes. All day long I watched them. As night fell, I scattered a small pinch of tobacco in the water. I turned to walk home with images of my new friends swimming through my mind. I had learned much from them.

 “I began to see those beavers in the 1970s” my grandma told me. I had poured myself a cup of calamint tea that I had gathered from the prairie when I arrived home, well after dark. I thought she would be excited to hear what I had observed. She was, and responded to me with equal enthusiasm. “The first day I went to that very spot Kwens, the one with the beavers, was forty years ago. As I watched them swim I was on my knees. At first I was so happy, they were hardworking but playful. Then I felt sorrow. I saw the water change and the beavers slow down. Their homes became smaller and sparser. Murky rainbow swirls and thick layers of scum permeated the waters. I saw thirst. It is a terrible sight, thirst. Its like seeing death itself.” I remembered hearing grandma’s story before about how she came to know the water would be bottled. It didn’t dawn on me that I had just visited that very spot. But I had. She continued,

“I kept going to visit those beavers after that dream. During that decade, the oil companies began exploiting the tar sands. It was slow at first. They would only dig so much. I noticed as the digging by the men increased, the beavers began increased their efforts as well. Today, it’s the largest damn in North America. Eh, Kwens. Did you see how many damns are there? It’s breath taking. They have truly built a fortress. The beavers knew that the waters needed protection, so they are working hard. Everything to their west is pure and clean. Everything to the east is dirty and will make you sick. The beavers can’t do it alone.”

Have you prayed for the water today? What are your rights to drink her, and obligations to keep her clean? Every sip is a dream and prayer for an earth made clean again.