The practical health qualities and symbolic nature of water

Last week I posted a comment on Bob McKerrow's blog - he was writing about water quality in the context of his International Red Cross work:

"Such a simple thing pure water when you have tons of it. I was told years ago that the daily mortality rate of kid's from impure water is in the thousands, and that thought haunts me!"

Bob replied:

"Yes, we often take pure water for granted. UNICEF figures put children dying of water borne at at least 50,000 plus a day. Staggering".

I'm having trouble getting my head around this figure! Even if it was 10/day I'd be "haunted"!

So since us humans are evolving at an ever increasing rate we must keep in mind as we nominate "zero tolerance" for so many things now, that this figure needs to be significantly reduced - to zero, that's my vote on water quality - and it's do-able!

There is still plenty of it around here, and it's pretty pure despite our Lake Wanaka being so full of what is essentially flood water...


Last week I was posting about our New Zealand Goverment's intent on mining in our National Parks and Conservation Estate, and mid week I was discussing this with one of my friends - he's a bird tour guide and every year or two does significant yachting voyages in the Pacific, and on his travels he's formed an opinion I'd like to share: that the most insidious thing re. these mining proposals is not so much the holes in the ground, scars on the landscape or rivers being ruined as they drain these areas, but that because so many other countries follow New Zealand's lead on so many issues that they'll say "oh, well lets rip up our own mountains [and degrade our water] - if it's OK for New Zealand to do it, we'll follow suit". [I just saw on TV yesterday: UK hung elections - they were checking out how we handled this a few years back]

Of course what will be glossed over I can guarantee, is when and how the environment will be restored - river catchments made healthy, as they feed our lakes and oceans!

As Bob has said: "water is first and deserves a gold rating".

Sort of makes me wonder: why do we have so many New Zealand Government Departments, yet none seem to have the sole focus of water quality and water health!

So how can we help: for starters we must make sure we preserve natural environments like this, as an inspiration and model the world can follow...


It's been my life's experience that when I dream during my sleep and water is part of the dream, that this symbolises, and is a solid guide to my emotional state. So I'm sort of wondering how I'll process these words during tonight's slumber. Will the dream be a worriesome adventure of staying safe and out of the way of brown turbulent flows and mud avalanches, or will I be floating on a turquoise ocean aboard a sparkling white yacht, under a pure blue sky!?

A few hours ago a first time viewer of this image I made yesterday stated it reminded her of the underworld. But I'd say it's that other place where we can ponder the context of knowledge gained and not just the content, which we tend to interpret so erroneously if we exclude the context of the information. Our egos love content organised in a nice linear fashion, but this is only a small part of establishing awareness, which in turn helps establish a universal truth that shines in the light...


There is a reverse side to everything, and while it maybe a play on words, reflection on just water alone will reveal there is another world that we can be inclined to ignore all to often, and I'm reminded too, as I write, that our bodies are apparently 70% comprised of water!

Water and rock - we cannot compress the former, and it will wear away rock. It is a true life source and force stronger than rock, yet in our living we allow the vanity of polluting it. This is crazy, and 50,000 children a day can attest to this as they suffer their way to a premature death!


We can lead the world if we can bring into our lives the tranquility and balance evident in nature by keeping this fair land, a land that many look to for inspiration and that visitors so try to emigrate too, as pristine as we possibly can. Then we'll go some ways towards drawing awareness to quality of life...


And we can be playful too...


Wisdom is said to grow by evaluating the context of all perceptions and knowledge that we garner from life, and filing it in our heads as provisional.

Water has content: it can be alive and oxygen rich, pollution free, or "dead". But it's really the context of what we have and could loose so easily, that we need to be very much aware of!

Water water everywhere... and submission[s]

Lots and lots of rain in the past week flooded Lake Wanaka, and was quite a worry for a day or two as anxious locals wondered if we'd have a repeat of the event several years ago that flooded many shops. However at the critical time it eased off, and now we've all been enjoying the autumn colours again.

For myself I'm in awe of nature, and while I loved it's display of disdain for the mundane affairs of us mortals, I am glad no one suffered too much.

From a photographer's perspective it's pretty nice to see water right in the trees and scrubs. Mostly this time of year it's all rocks and gravel around the lake edge...


We'll all be supplementing this winter's firewood supply with driftwood...


Fisherman don't have to walk to... let alone stand by the water at present...


After such extreme weather it's amazing how tranquil it is now...






In recent blogs I've commented on the silly attempts our current New Zealand National Government is making to open up National Parks and Conservation areas to mining. Then this morning on the National Radio I was listening to an interview with the United Nation's High Commissioner Richard Toll [spelling?].

He articulated many good things about New Zealand and Australia's contributions to the well being of this planet and apart from noting the unexpectedly high [for me] amounts of money given to the various causes, I had time to ponder that we do indeed lead by example in so many fields.

So why does our current Govt. insist on compromising our lands locked up in perpetuity? What sort of an example is this to set to a world that struggles in so many areas to rise above insane behaviour - not only wars, but ruining the very air and water we need to survive!

It can only be that big egos are involved. Pity really... we need good ideas, but also the maturity to give realistic values to them.

Our local paper the Otago Daily Times published an interesting report recently on the International Union of Conservation for Nature (IUCN), criticism of our Government, and this union is the world's oldest and largest environmental network.

Then came this interesting photo embedded in an article on mining in Central Otago. A photo that for me makes me think of just what a mess mining makes of our precious landscapes.

We are after all mostly talking about holes in the ground here! Some of the biggest earners are full of water and we know some of them as the Southern Lakes. It's hard to fathom how a few jobs in that other hole, the one already having money poured into it, can bring more earnings than tourists coming especially to see the natural holes, the rivers that fill them, and the mountains and glaciers that give birth to these life sustaining rivers.

Submissions close Tuesday 4th May at 5pm.

Jerry Brownlee needs to get this message! Please do your bit:

www.2precious2mine.org.nz

You can do an on-line submission from a choice of three different templates, or refer to submission guides for your own submission. The more personalised the better.

Thanks for the heads up Bruce