The Community Practice
The Waters of Life
Our community practice this path is a simple one but one meant to spark long-term change: in some way over the next two weeks, choose a way to be of service to the waterways.
There are so many ways to participate in protecting our riverways and you probably have a local group or initiatives that you can check out - even that initial research, maybe even reaching out would be a lovely way to be of service. Small steps are great ones to take! I've listed some ideas below, but I want to emphasize that my approach is not from a finger-wagging, doomsday sort of place, but from a place of curiosity and ease. What sparks your interest? What feels doable? What draws you into kinship with the land and your community?
✨ If you host events or get-togethers, consider the ways that you can reduce trash (which so often ends up in our waterways) produced at these gatherings. This is one of those things that can not only set a good example to your students if this is a teaching event, but for social gatherings it can help to subtly shift a culture of a friend group and all the ways it extends outwards. An example of this sort of easy social activism is how there has been a shift in gift-buying culture, especially among kid's birthday parties in some parts of the US. Now instead of buying gifts, either no items are needed or low-dollar donations are asked for to support a local project (like an animal shelter) and conversations are had amongst families from a young age on toys, trash, and, even better, supporting puppies and kittens (or your favorite cause) as part of a celebration. As we've been exploring currents and flow as part of our path, what are ways that you can create these little currents of change that free up your energy to flow more easily?
✨ Do a riverside or waterway trash walk. While picking up trash can sometimes feel futile (unrecycled, unprocessed trash always ends up in someone's backyard), it does still tend to the land around you. Better yet if you're able to dispose of the trash you find as responsibly as possible as well as do simple things that reduce the trash you produce (while recognizing that individual effort is good, but in the long-run holding corporations responsible for their outsized role in trash is even more effective).
✨ Sponsor a riverway animal. Find the organizations reintroducing beavers to riverways or protecting river otters or championing your favorite fish and support them through donations of time or finances. Alternatively, sponsor riverway plant projects, reintroducing native and helpful species to river banks.
These are just a few simple solutions, but I hope they encourage you to see the work of the Gathering Path not only meant for our inner worlds, but for affecting and being affected by the land around us. If you like, share some of your favorite waterway projects in our community chat .
Sacred Inquiry
Read through the list of prompts, spending time with whichever ones you find interesting. These questions and prompts can transform into divination spreads, the first lines of poems, journal entries, coven conversations, and more. Let yourself feel into them.
What do the riverways of my body look like?
How is the land around me mirrored in my riverways?
What are the external and internal tools that I use to navigate the rivers in my life with greater ease?
What feels fragile in my inner river ecosystem? What feels resilient about my inner river?
How does energy move through my body? Does it feel free-flowing? Stagnant? Slow? Hot and bouncing? Sharp or disordered?
How has my "blood" (my family of origin) affected my path of healing?
My flow feels most disrupted when…
I feel most in my flow when…
When I connected to our community web I saw / felt / heard…
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✨ Return to The Gathering Path ✨