Ceremony | Water is Life

Word Cloud created from The Symbolism Of Fish: Exploring Different Cultures And Meanings

Create a Water Ceremony

Throughout history, we have always held ceremonies and rituals. They are our means of celebrating, marking moments, or making sense of the world we experience. For example, events such as naming ceremonies, funerals and unions [marriages], or more frequently, a football match or gig, are all a form of ritual where we share our feelings. Ceremonies have a more sacred element and gentle nature, they can include performance and express a sense of mourning or appreciation.

What Can a Water Ceremony Bring?

• Create an emotional connection with your local water bodies
• Continuous outreach - engage your community in devising the ceremony, publicise your ceremony and finally invite the wider public into your event
• Develop and strengthen relationships with other groups
• Build a common community purpose
• Influence local authorities and regulatory organisations
• Bring people to your Community Assembly
• Raise awareness and promote a Citizens' Assembly on Water

Ideas and Assets to Create Your Ceremony

We have created outreach materials for you to promote your ceremony. You can use the editable versions of the leaflets to add your text, QR codes and date/place of your ceremony and also use the printer-ready versions to send to a professional printer.

Download Stickers | posters | flyers

Fresh water is precious and finite | All life depends on it

Our waterways are the arteries and veins of the earth. If we pollute those waterways, life will die.

“Nothing on this planet had so forcefully hammered into her the ultimate value of water. Not the water-sellers, nor the dried skins of the natives ... Here there was a substance more precious than all others - it was life itself and entwined all around with symbolism and ritual.” - Frank Herbert, Dune

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” W H Auden, First Things First

• We are 60% water, our brains 80%
• In mineral composition, the water in our cells is comparable to seawater
• Our need for, use of and accommodations with water defines us
• Water dominates our perception of our planet and ourselves

Celebrating Water

Connection through water, with nature and each other fosters well-being, through a regenerative and healing relationship, encouraging the flow and exchange of energy and knowledge:

• Cultivate a sense of curiosity/care/communication/collaboration through creative interactions with the river (song, music, poetry, art).
• Explore: physically get to know your local waters (the source, wells and tributaries) to engage with and care for your local waterway.
• Research: look at wider connections, the history of the local waters and collect local stories and images.
• Consider the catchment area, sewage treatment works, landfills and other sources of pollution.

Some Inspiration & Ideas

• Engage other river/water users to build a community of custodians
• Lead walks, clear litter/blockages
• Consider joining a water testing group
• Offer Science Street Talk to other groups, share research
• Post on social media highlighting local pollution issues
• Make mandalas, chant/sing to rivers/make music, use Sound Bowls

• Collect stories

• Create artwork, write poetry, read poetry

• Create an impactful ceremony to demonstrate our anger, grief and sadness at the state of our waterways and our love for all life.

• Share the ceremony with local authorities, politicians, other water users and engage schools & colleges
  
  

• Song of the Thames (YouTube 29min) by Sam Lee - singer and song collector

• Traditional Native Storytelling - Salmon Boy (YouTube 12min) with Roger Fernandes

• The Lost Words Blessing - (YouTube 4min) a song created from Robert Macfarlane's book The Lost Words

• Welcoming the River Wye Ceremony [YouTube 5min] at Herefordshire Council featuring Wye River Goddess puppet

  • Running order [Dropbox 1 min] for the Ceremony for the River Wye

Incorporate Blue Plaques for Nature

• See the freshwater species affected - more than 100,000 known wildlife species depend on freshwater ecosystem. And that's not counting the seas/oceans
• A QR code on the plaque could point to the history of the river/waterway.
• Find more details on the Blue Plaques for Nature page
  

Puppets, Masks and Costumes

• Make a ‘big splash’ in your local media with colourful puppets, masks and costumes