As leaders in our families, in stewardship of the interconnected web, and in justice activism, we each find our own flow. Like water itself, we might at different times embody power or depletion, nourishment of others or self-nourishment. Try this meditation together with your family.

Imagine your favorite body of water. It may be ocean, or lake, or brook, or something else. Notice how the water moves, the way it holds its space between land and air. Come closer. Notice the color of the water, and its smell. Notice what the water carries—bits of plant, particles of soil or sand, swimming fish, creatures too small to be seen. Touch the water. Is it cool? How does it taste?

Become one with the water. Take its form, and join its natural journey. Feel your power and strength as you shape your own path. You are full of joy, and an energy that can literally move mountains.

Now settle yourself and become a fresh water lake. As water spills in, you are constantly renewed, and constantly sending your own living waters forth. You feel full, but not overfull, strong and deep, filled with activity yet stable in your lake bed. Now it is time to move. Follow the pull into the mighty river. You carry nature’s life and human commerce as you hurry, pushing on downstream. When snow melts into you or heavy rains fall, you spill from your riverbed, covering the land with destruction yet leaving soil and nutrients that will enrich the land as your waters recede.

You are left behind, a small, stagnant pool. Your ecosystem is isolated. There is calm here, but also decay. Soon, you evaporate into the atmosphere.

You return to Earth as rain, falling into the vast, rolling ocean that answers to the forces of moon, wind, and weather. Now you are the place where life arose on Earth, the cradle for billions of species, too big, broad, and deep for even a tsunami to fundamentally change you. You are the complement of air and earth, as permanent as anything can be. Feel your timeless motion as your waves rise and churn.

Now come back to your human self, your human life.

Wondering Questions

• When have you acted like an ocean? like a river? like an isolated pool?
• How can you bring a sense of oneness with earth’s water into your daily life?

Commit to your stewardship of ocean, river, and lake—the waters you and all earth’s life depend on.