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!

Moods of Fiordland

Following last week's popular blog on landscape photography in Dusky and Doubtful Sounds, this week's theme is on the moods that are unique to Fiordland. Again taken in 2005 in July, and featuring Doubtful Sound on our way back from Dusky with our friends Arthur and Barbara on board their Elwing. A special voyage for us all as it was Elwing's first wanderings in these waters - how very special to do it in the company of friends!

It's not well known that there is much circumstantial evidence that suggests the Spaniards landed in New Zealand just near here on Bauza Island probably before Capt. Cook...


As I've been compiling this post I've been struck by how these images have been waiting for "their time", and how Fiordland has come into my awareness so much of late that I'm compelled to bring them into the light along with the story. I wonder why!?

Heading up Crooked Arm intending to tramp across to Dagg Sound we encountered ice and it was rather scary at this point [note tenseness in crew's posture] due to the noise..


So we hove-to deciding to assess [and photograph] the situation...


The assessment took the form of scooting around Elwing in the inflatable examining the hull and ice thickness. Personally I found it very lonely amongst the ice in such a small craft, but it was good for photography...




Back on-board again we motored up the Arm a bit further following a steel hulled craft that happened along, as Elwing's glass-over-Kauri hull was getting damaged right on the nose of the bow...


This is the point at which we hove-to again. The ice was 3-4 inches thick here and our ice-breaker had to give up. It was so cold our "lead" was freezing over, but the noise of the ice echoing off the cliffs and the situation was so unique and spectacular we had a cuppa before retreating...


After getting a dose of sun out in the openness of Doubtful, we next headed up Hall Arm for the night following a fishing boat out of Bluff...


After many days of aloneness in the sounds it felt quite strange to have company anchored nearby for the night, and it struck me most during my usual nocturnal visit to the deck in the early hours - seeing a light across the water on a canvas of precipitous mountain walls of 1500 meters with their feet in the water just by us, seemed surreal to say the least...


During the night it started raining softly and of course then, in typical Fiordland fashion, the waterfalls festooned the mountain sides...


One of our crew, Colin, was keen to get a deer, so while we went ashore at an interesting spot where a creek offered easy egress upwards aways, he prowled this area. Here Arthur is coming back from picking him up [empty handed]...


To be raining has to be the natural state of Fiordland, and I find it so beautiful even when I'm soaked, so with Elwing's warm and dry cabin nearby it was far from onerous to stay on-deck for hours to make these landscape shots...


Heading towards Elizabeth Island...


For me this view epitomises Fiordland - moodiness and mystery abound...


Right on evening/dusk the light went to some unusual colours...


Sadly the following day the trip was over, and here is Dougal eyeing up the jetty in Deep Cove where we caught the daily tourist bus back to Lake Manapouri [Maori for Lake of the Sorrowing Heart - so apt!]. Here we said good bye to Arthur, who sailed solo back to Stewart Island a few days later after spending a few days in Dusky again...


There are still more images and stories related to this adventure, but it's been a long week underscored by this long post, so until next time. In the meantime with the week having brought me many coincidences and serendipity, my note to self and others is: stay grounded, protect ourselves from situations and people that drain us and immerse in the practical tasks of life with always an eye for the tendency of situations to guide us. Bring all into our awareness for our own sakes and in the service of others.

**Blog of the week [a new feature - each week I'll endeavour to include a link to something I've found inspiring or enjoyable]: Bob McKerrow's post on 40,000 houses built by the Red Cross in Aceh Indonesia

Gentle breathing all :)