Beautiful pictures, alas, the words don’t hold the spell. Rough edges, awkward phases that drag against worthwhile thinking - academic eddys counter the flow. Not for me, but wish you well. Read some Samantha Clark on her Lifeboat stack - especially “the color of water.”
> land and water relationship has always had a stronger claim than ownership
Yep. I have been reading The Dawn of Everything by Graeber & Wengrow, and they discuss the foundation of property in Roman law - that the owner needs to be able to use the property, benefit from its fruits and, crucially, be able to destroy it.
I would quote from the book but I gave my copy away to a Slovenian academic in Estonia, and Archive.org have been hamstrung by the publishers' court case.
> to be a poet is an outrageous calling, not a judicious career move.
That is a fantastic book. I have it heavily marked up, but of course have forgotten most of it. I need to at least turn through it again to the pages I've marked. It's so important, how they dismantled the idea of human progress as some kind of linear timeline to what is called "civilization."
I had a really interesting conversation with a lawyer about that court case last week. Some complicated points, though really the problem is capitalism at the root, as usual.
When I was young, I used to ask at every waterway I came across that had even a hint of clearness "Can I drink it?". It was a spiritual act that I craved. Now it's not even a question worth asking. My own cynicism and acceptance of that state of affairs disturbs me. Thank you for stirring up this memory.
It really is a spiritual act. I spent part of this week by a river where I know the answer to the question far too well, being familiar with her long run through massive agricultural lands. It pains me for her.
I remember when I first went hiking and saw a river the first thing I did was feel the flowing cold water and put my feet in it.. and then I just dunked my head and started drinking, not realizing the fact that it’s not as clean as I wanted. The analogy of the river in Islam is closely related to prayer, it cleanses and cleans you., unfortunately, we do not respect the sanctity of the rivers..
That is beautiful, though, Abdulrahman, thank you.
When I think about the commons and privatization and our disconnection from nature, I always think of water first. If someone thinks they can do anything they want to water, abuse it in any way, then that’s the first step to believing that of any other living being. Water is life, and if we don’t understand that our survival and health depends on water’s survival and health, then we don’t understand anything.
Your writing is like seeing the sky on an especially dark night, all of the stars expanding my view and making me feel my own smallness and my integral belonging in the world. I cherish it. Thank you for this.
The fact that most drinking water is polluted with plastics (PFAS, whatever you want to call it) is maddening; 98% of humans have PFAS in our blood. I've been using a ZeroWater filter for drinking waster at home, and it supposedly removes PFAS, lead, chlorine... but it's in a plastic pitcher, so I'm not sure how that works.
When I camped in the Pine Barrens, I tested the water from the ground well, and it had 18ppm of Total Dissolved Solids, the lowest I've ever tested. The safe level for PFAS is below 1ppm, so that's something else. There's fresh water out there. Until Nestle owns it all.
The fact that most drinking water is polluted with plastics (PFAS, whatever you want to call it) is maddening; 98% of humans have PFAS in our blood. I've been using a ZeroWater filter for drinking waster at home, and it supposedly removes PFAS, lead, chlorine... but it's in a plastic pitcher, so I'm not sure how that works.
When I camped in the Pine Barrens, I tested the water from the ground well, and it had 18ppm of Total Dissolved Solids, the lowest I've ever tested. The safe level for PFAS is below 1ppm, so that's something else. There's fresh water out there. Until Nestle owns it all.
The fact that most drinking water is polluted with plastics (PFAS, whatever you want to call it) is maddening; 98% of humans have PFAS in our blood. I've been using a ZeroWater filter for drinking waster at home, and it supposedly removes PFAS, lead, chlorine... but it's in a plastic pitcher, so I'm not sure how that works.
When I camped in the Pine Barrens, I tested the water from the ground well, and it had 18ppm of Total Dissolved Solids, the lowest I've ever tested. The safe level for PFAS is below 1ppm, so that's something else. There's fresh water out there. Until Nestle owns it all.
It drives me nuts. It's in all the water in the entire planet, and the research that showed it is barely ever mentioned!
The pitcher/filter situation reminds me of an essay a friend wrote years ago about the abysmal air quality in Salt Lake City and the landfill full of air filtration masks, which were off-gassing. It's impossible to get away from.
Don't let Nestle get it! They never let go of anything. There was a creek in a National Forest in California they'd been drawing from and not paying for for decades, with an expired permit. It came up a lot locally when people were fighting a permit for a water bottling plant, which was an application from a local farmer but has obviously potential for a lot more.
I kept thinking of John while reading this and how important his work is. Water activism is almost a lost battle here in India. It breaks my heart beyond belief to see cities mounting on piles of plastic rich landfills dumped on lakes and marshes to ‘solidify’ the ground. Not only rivers water at its source is undrinkable, it is also drying out at a frightening pace because of global warming, hitting harder the warmer latitudes. Every year the monsoon is both delayed and deadly. In summer there is intense water scarcity and in monsoon more occurrences of catastrophic flooding. It is quite frightening and I kept thinking of this colossal mother we live on being on the breaking point of her rage.
Reading your words of quiet interactions with the river, I am also reminded of time when I was an young adult living in Dehradun and often drank from leaking streams flowing down through the rocks after having a hard trek or plenty walking. I miss that so much in these overly and badly planned cities. And I know that some part of me will always pine to go back to the wild, but will the wild remain unchanged by our human greed is a whole another discussion.
I am happy to temporarily exist here under the seven sisters (we call it saptarishi or 5 sages who are sons of Bramha the creator) with you and the rest of us who have appreciate Earth’s story and that of ours💜
It's hard to write about water and not think of John's work! It's so important.
I think I remember you writing a bit about the monsoons earlier this year. It's such a different weather pattern than what I'm used to, and I think of you in those intense rains, the smell of soil and also the hope and worry that comes with each season.
I read Arundhati Roy's "For the Great Common Good" on dams in India last year and cannot get it out of my head. What has been done to your land, my friend, ... I want to repair it with love from across the world.
How beautiful, drinking from the streams in Dehradun.💧💧💧 I want that for you again, for all of us. And would love to read anything you write about those times.
And thank you for sharing your own Seven Sisters story. It truly makes me cry, knowing that we are connected by the peopling and storying of those stars, thinking of humans over a hundred thousand years and all across the world craning their necks up to look into the sky and listen to the stories they tell. ✨💖✨
To the stars and the stories that will survive us all and our love for this beautiful Earth that will hopefully surpass all the hate and destruction. 💜
Hey Antonia, what I love about reading your work is the way you take me to experiences and a way of life that is far from mine and take me out of myself and the somehow back into myself in a different way. I’m not going to go barefoot…but, in my mind and by the strength of your writing, I have.
The politics of water are certainly becoming more and more understood. They are almost rank with greed and an almost grotesque disregard for people in their flagrant pollution.
You do the same with your work for me! I mean, not that I haven't been to those places but certainly not to that time. It's wonderful.
The situation with water is pretty incredible no matter where you are in the world. I still can't get over fishing access in the UK. Where I live in Montana we have a stream access law which means that all navigable water is public up to the high water mark (access is still an issue -- you can only get on a river at public spots), and it's something that wealthy landowners are always fighting. They want those streams privatized.
Beautiful pictures, alas, the words don’t hold the spell. Rough edges, awkward phases that drag against worthwhile thinking - academic eddys counter the flow. Not for me, but wish you well. Read some Samantha Clark on her Lifeboat stack - especially “the color of water.”
Not everything is for everyone. Appreciate you reading!
Beautifully written. Water is so precious, so elemental.
It really is. Thank you!
> land and water relationship has always had a stronger claim than ownership
Yep. I have been reading The Dawn of Everything by Graeber & Wengrow, and they discuss the foundation of property in Roman law - that the owner needs to be able to use the property, benefit from its fruits and, crucially, be able to destroy it.
I would quote from the book but I gave my copy away to a Slovenian academic in Estonia, and Archive.org have been hamstrung by the publishers' court case.
> to be a poet is an outrageous calling, not a judicious career move.
This made me laugh out loud!
That is a fantastic book. I have it heavily marked up, but of course have forgotten most of it. I need to at least turn through it again to the pages I've marked. It's so important, how they dismantled the idea of human progress as some kind of linear timeline to what is called "civilization."
I had a really interesting conversation with a lawyer about that court case last week. Some complicated points, though really the problem is capitalism at the root, as usual.
It made me laugh out loud, too!
Since you mentioned elk I have to share today's poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, who posts one every day. My morning routine includes reading poetry and her site is a daily stop for me. https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2024/09/15/i-couldnt-see-the-elk-but/
Oh, how beautiful is that. I don't know her work but will be following it now. Thank you. This is so spot on: "The kind of scent that makes
me crinkle my nose in almost
disgust, then inhale deeply
as if the body can’t get enough."
When I was young, I used to ask at every waterway I came across that had even a hint of clearness "Can I drink it?". It was a spiritual act that I craved. Now it's not even a question worth asking. My own cynicism and acceptance of that state of affairs disturbs me. Thank you for stirring up this memory.
It really is a spiritual act. I spent part of this week by a river where I know the answer to the question far too well, being familiar with her long run through massive agricultural lands. It pains me for her.
So so beautiful. I was there with you, the cold dirt under my toes and the glowing Milky Way river overhead. Gah, just beautiful.
I bet you’d be good company right there! It’s just incredible sitting by a river under a thick carpet of stars in that way …
I remember when I first went hiking and saw a river the first thing I did was feel the flowing cold water and put my feet in it.. and then I just dunked my head and started drinking, not realizing the fact that it’s not as clean as I wanted. The analogy of the river in Islam is closely related to prayer, it cleanses and cleans you., unfortunately, we do not respect the sanctity of the rivers..
thank you Tonia..
That is beautiful, though, Abdulrahman, thank you.
When I think about the commons and privatization and our disconnection from nature, I always think of water first. If someone thinks they can do anything they want to water, abuse it in any way, then that’s the first step to believing that of any other living being. Water is life, and if we don’t understand that our survival and health depends on water’s survival and health, then we don’t understand anything.
❤️❤️
Hugs, Val. 💚
Your writing is like seeing the sky on an especially dark night, all of the stars expanding my view and making me feel my own smallness and my integral belonging in the world. I cherish it. Thank you for this.
That is so kind, River, thank you!
The fact that most drinking water is polluted with plastics (PFAS, whatever you want to call it) is maddening; 98% of humans have PFAS in our blood. I've been using a ZeroWater filter for drinking waster at home, and it supposedly removes PFAS, lead, chlorine... but it's in a plastic pitcher, so I'm not sure how that works.
When I camped in the Pine Barrens, I tested the water from the ground well, and it had 18ppm of Total Dissolved Solids, the lowest I've ever tested. The safe level for PFAS is below 1ppm, so that's something else. There's fresh water out there. Until Nestle owns it all.
The fact that most drinking water is polluted with plastics (PFAS, whatever you want to call it) is maddening; 98% of humans have PFAS in our blood. I've been using a ZeroWater filter for drinking waster at home, and it supposedly removes PFAS, lead, chlorine... but it's in a plastic pitcher, so I'm not sure how that works.
When I camped in the Pine Barrens, I tested the water from the ground well, and it had 18ppm of Total Dissolved Solids, the lowest I've ever tested. The safe level for PFAS is below 1ppm, so that's something else. There's fresh water out there. Until Nestle owns it all.
The fact that most drinking water is polluted with plastics (PFAS, whatever you want to call it) is maddening; 98% of humans have PFAS in our blood. I've been using a ZeroWater filter for drinking waster at home, and it supposedly removes PFAS, lead, chlorine... but it's in a plastic pitcher, so I'm not sure how that works.
When I camped in the Pine Barrens, I tested the water from the ground well, and it had 18ppm of Total Dissolved Solids, the lowest I've ever tested. The safe level for PFAS is below 1ppm, so that's something else. There's fresh water out there. Until Nestle owns it all.
It drives me nuts. It's in all the water in the entire planet, and the research that showed it is barely ever mentioned!
The pitcher/filter situation reminds me of an essay a friend wrote years ago about the abysmal air quality in Salt Lake City and the landfill full of air filtration masks, which were off-gassing. It's impossible to get away from.
Don't let Nestle get it! They never let go of anything. There was a creek in a National Forest in California they'd been drawing from and not paying for for decades, with an expired permit. It came up a lot locally when people were fighting a permit for a water bottling plant, which was an application from a local farmer but has obviously potential for a lot more.
Thank you, Nia! Echoing what others have said, a side effect of reading your wonderful writing is that my TBR book piles keep growing! 🙏❤️
I should rename the newsletter! Need More Books? Too Many Books?!
I kept thinking of John while reading this and how important his work is. Water activism is almost a lost battle here in India. It breaks my heart beyond belief to see cities mounting on piles of plastic rich landfills dumped on lakes and marshes to ‘solidify’ the ground. Not only rivers water at its source is undrinkable, it is also drying out at a frightening pace because of global warming, hitting harder the warmer latitudes. Every year the monsoon is both delayed and deadly. In summer there is intense water scarcity and in monsoon more occurrences of catastrophic flooding. It is quite frightening and I kept thinking of this colossal mother we live on being on the breaking point of her rage.
Reading your words of quiet interactions with the river, I am also reminded of time when I was an young adult living in Dehradun and often drank from leaking streams flowing down through the rocks after having a hard trek or plenty walking. I miss that so much in these overly and badly planned cities. And I know that some part of me will always pine to go back to the wild, but will the wild remain unchanged by our human greed is a whole another discussion.
I am happy to temporarily exist here under the seven sisters (we call it saptarishi or 5 sages who are sons of Bramha the creator) with you and the rest of us who have appreciate Earth’s story and that of ours💜
It's hard to write about water and not think of John's work! It's so important.
I think I remember you writing a bit about the monsoons earlier this year. It's such a different weather pattern than what I'm used to, and I think of you in those intense rains, the smell of soil and also the hope and worry that comes with each season.
I read Arundhati Roy's "For the Great Common Good" on dams in India last year and cannot get it out of my head. What has been done to your land, my friend, ... I want to repair it with love from across the world.
How beautiful, drinking from the streams in Dehradun.💧💧💧 I want that for you again, for all of us. And would love to read anything you write about those times.
And thank you for sharing your own Seven Sisters story. It truly makes me cry, knowing that we are connected by the peopling and storying of those stars, thinking of humans over a hundred thousand years and all across the world craning their necks up to look into the sky and listen to the stories they tell. ✨💖✨
To the stars and the stories that will survive us all and our love for this beautiful Earth that will hopefully surpass all the hate and destruction. 💜
💚✨🕯️
Hey Antonia, what I love about reading your work is the way you take me to experiences and a way of life that is far from mine and take me out of myself and the somehow back into myself in a different way. I’m not going to go barefoot…but, in my mind and by the strength of your writing, I have.
The politics of water are certainly becoming more and more understood. They are almost rank with greed and an almost grotesque disregard for people in their flagrant pollution.
You do the same with your work for me! I mean, not that I haven't been to those places but certainly not to that time. It's wonderful.
The situation with water is pretty incredible no matter where you are in the world. I still can't get over fishing access in the UK. Where I live in Montana we have a stream access law which means that all navigable water is public up to the high water mark (access is still an issue -- you can only get on a river at public spots), and it's something that wealthy landowners are always fighting. They want those streams privatized.
Predator class.
YES.