Page 14 - ECOlogic Book

Water: The Mysterious Language
(Fall, 1990)

The Lakota word for water is “Mni”. “Ni” means “the breath of life” so
“Mini” identifies water as life-giving. The word itself places water in
the cycle of the planet’s respiration. Thus, the Lakota is ever mindful
of the connection between water and life. It’s built into the language.

We in Michigan lag behind other states in our awareness of the preciousness
of water – probably because we have so much of it here. It’s easy to take
for granted that which we have in abundance. An abundance of water exists
as well on a planetary level. The only water planet in the Solar System – or
any other system, as far as we know, our planet is 70% water. No other
planet has been discovered anywhere that has any water at all, though
scientists are now convinced that water was once a feature of Mars and may
still exist there below the surface. On earth, we are surrounded by it.

Because we are primarily land creatures this fact hardly sinks in. Yet our
connection to the primordial seas is undeniable. We, like the planet, are
70% water, bound to the ocean by our blood and our tears. In the womb,
the amniotic fluid that surrounded and nourished us replicates exactly the
waters of the ocean.

Is it any wonder, then, that we respond to water in all of its various forms as
deeply as we do? Lake. Ocean. River. Stream. Pond. Rain. Snow. Fog.
These words tug at us deeply. Revered since ancient times in every
tradition as the medium through which the divine spirit touches the human,
water activates our awareness of our connection to the planet as no other
element can. This connection, water reminds us, is much more than simply
the physical earth–connection noted in the scripture, “Dust thou are, to dust
returneth.” Through water, we know we are earth and more. We are earth
and spirit in equal measure. Several writers have sensed this connection.

In their book, the Element of Life, Theodore and Woldfam Schwenk
speculate that water is the link between life and non-life, as they pose the
question, “Is there a bridge that leads over from one set of laws to the
other? Is there a process that demonstrates the life function as such? Is
there a corresponding bridge between the two realms that human
consciousness can use? There is indeed,” they say, “and it is water, that
symbol of streaming life – water, every quality of which reveals its life
origin. It is water, where all life-qualities are focused. It is water, focal

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