Last night, whilst soaking in the bath, I began reflecting on the issue of water. I had watched a trailer for “Tapped” a movie about bottled water, and its impact on the planet. It is a topic that I have been aware of for some time and which I feel an engagement with. A few years ago I was in Brasil looking into the possibility of buying a large 10,000 acre piece of land in the high plains which had an abundance of very clean unpolluted waters, and even included some of the headwaters of the Amazon basin. Part of the attraction to buying this land was to protect these waters from pollution, or exploitation. I think Brasil has about 15% of the fresh water on the entire planet, and most of this is within the Amazon basin.
However as I was reflecting on the idea of water crisis, it started pouring with rain again outside. It has been raining a lot here for the past week. The thought arose suddenly in my mind that in this moment, based on the reality I am experiencing right now – there is no water crisis. In the luxury of a warm bath filled with the softest rainwater, with the big water storage tanks outside my window being replenished as I lay there, the idea that there was a water shortage did not exist for a moment. In that very moment I was believing the information I was taking in directly from my senses, and the information I receive from news reports and internet, somewhere ‘out there’ etc, seemed to have a very flimsy reality.
I remember I had a similar experience a while back when I was in Guatemala, reading all about how all the bees were dying and the effect that would have on the planet. That very day the little house I was renting had a sudden invasion of bees, hundreds of them, I had to leave the house for a while. And so this same question arose as to the nature of information and what to believe, in each moment.
It seems to me in these moments that I am not burying my head in the sand and avoiding or denying these potential crises out there. Its more like the whole linear nature of information and belief around ‘the future’ and what is real pauses. A gap in continuity. It all becomes more random, more fluid, more open to alternatives. It feels exciting.
And I also noticed that while allowing myself this experience of an abundance of water, at the same time there was also a lot of energy to research more into the this topic of water and how we use it on the planet, and I spent the rest of the evening finding out more. I can feel there is more I want to share about that, but will put it into another post, with some links and stuff.