Water tales

Family vacation in Ontario.

Water has taught me more by its absence than by its access we too often take for granted. Just like there are the ''hair tales'' or ''tooth tales'' I came up with from raising three boys, after 3 years of living in the House of Enchantments, where I suddenly felt a deep connection with these women and girls in Africa carrying jars of water on their heads, I came to see myself as a ''porteuse d'eau'' (water bearer) too and decided to develop the theme of H2O...

My house has the annoying features of displaying faucets that are too stubborn to deliver hot water immediately. Hating to waste the running water while we wait for it to warm up, I came up with the system of filling up a pitcher in the kitchen sink and 2 plastic wastebins in my shower (that is how long it takes for the water to become warm !) so that I can use the liquid to water my bamboo plants, rose bushes and lemon tree.

The week having been already intense just before this second bookend Full Moon of the month, I felt quite stressed on Wednesday when my shower faucet suddenly came apart or disassembled itself while I was taking a shower, which means I was unable to turn it off by tightening the screw (who in the world came up with this poor coffre-fort or safe-like design for the faucet ???). Rather horrified, I was already envisioning the enormous wastage of water by the time I would find someone available to fix the issue... Plus I had already a workday ahead of me, and I was frantically deciding whether I should cancel appointments... But after a few seconds that felt like an eternity, I simply decided to turn off the water completely outside (after quickly drying myself and putting some clothes on, of course). Occam's blade principle: go to the easiest solution first (even if not the most elegant). I was a tiny bit worried about inconveniencing the youth living with me, but I thought it was not necessarily a bad thing to learn to deal with the frustration of such service interruptions. Turning off the water for the whole house actually allowed me to calm down while I was reflecting on what to do; I could then find the right tool to tighten up the screw until I would figure out what to do with the faucet. I would simply have to use the other shower (which needs some Drano treatment... that's another ''water tale'' right there, or ''flooding'' story !).

Useless to say I was grateful beyond words when I was able to safely turn the water back on and rinsed my veggies. This made me realize the advantage of being older: you have experienced enough such inconveniences to truly appreciate something as simple as running water ! Maybe profound and long-lasting gratitude needs some level of adversity in order to be accessed...

Two days later, Friday, it was a weird day with weird energies (way beyond I could ever include in this blog, I am telling you... I am learning to look at life not through the words people use but the subtext that says it all... I do ''energetic readings'' of situations that get my attention...). My son was making me worried again. Then, as I was trying to work, an awful ''head-drilling'' sound came out of my refrigerator, which I eventually decided to try to reset by turning off the breaker... which gave me the idea of trying to turn the breaker of my malfunctioning oven back on. And guess what... I was able to bake... cookies !!! So the water element symbolized by my refrigerator led to the resuscitation of my oven... after 7 months of inactivity !!! (Fire element ! More in a subsequent blog).

The other water story is that Friday, I was going over my social media memories and realized it was the anniversary of my worrisome son's fall from the high dive at the community pool ! And he hadn't fallen on the water... but on the cement ! Thankfully, he had just minor fractures... He was extremely lucky. This had been such an intense moment, I even wrote a poem about that day of May. Maybe that is why he didn't feel well... his body remembered ? Pool, water... again, another water tale...

Finally, today. After a perplexing and emotionally intense day that started with a weird dream in which I took a bus without verifying its destination, which at some point led me to confirm with a passenger and made me get off instead of veering off further away from my goal (going shopping), I decided to end the celebration of the Full Blue Moon (which had started the day before by a hike to a ranch, then a drumming session, then some dancing and finally putting my crystals outside overnight) by a cold plunge in my pool. I was tired, just wanted the day during which I felt so frustrated about certain things and seriously concerned about others to end, but went in anyway, and saw a tiny and cute frog jump out as I came out of the pool. I even started engaging conversation with it. 

I needed that reset. I also felt connected with my 14-yo son who is an avid swimmer and who will have his promotion ceremony from middle school tomorrow. 

Swimming moves the energies around. I think it realigned my chakras too, just like the full moon rays cleansed my crystals. Everything being energy, I feel like I have nothing to lose. Plus, it is fun to break the routine by having those special rituals, whether we think they actually work or not.

Good night and happy Full Blue Moon (I understood for the first time the expression ''once in a blue moon'' LOL). And blue is a fitting color for ''water tales''.

Enjoy the blue spaces, and use water like it is a sacred resource, because it is.

May we all be inspired by its fluidity, transparency and purified by its gentle waves.

One of the many things I appreciate about my Native Québec: its lakes.
Andreas is gazing at one, Parc National de la Mauricie.