Peace water rite
As Druids, our work with spirit necessarily involves the art of sacred relationship. When in conflict, we are part of a breakdown in communication, the sharp edges of our identities and desires colliding with another, whether that other be a fellow human being, or the land or the animals that live there. Our tradition teaches a way to listen in the heat of conflict, to be alert and seek inspiration for a resolution, a way through. Even though our personal lives may be at peace, resolved, it is important that we remember the loss, grief and anger felt by those in war situations around the world. Through awen, we have a gift to offer, a way to mediate, inspire, honour the desire for lasting peace.
This is a ritual that can be created alone or in groups, and it uses as a focus and carrier the element of water. The effect of blessing water is profound, it changes the energy field, enlivens it and charges it, and it is something anyone can do. Water is a carrier of information, physically and emotionally, and is an element intricately connected to our basic health, no matter where we live or how rich or poor we are.
Spend a little time considering what peace means to you. Remember the times when you have lost loved ones, or been angry, at war with another. Allow the feelings to rise in you, and feel them in your body. Perhaps your breath shortens, heart races, perhaps your stomach turns or you
feel hot. Hold the feeling but don't allow yourself to be absorbed by it.
Then expand that observation, tune into zones around the world where you know there is conflict, perhaps feel some affinity for the people living there, or the land that suffers there. Your grief, loss, pain, is also theirs, and theirs yours. We are not disconnected by geography, nor by skin colour, nor by language. Try to imagine how it must be to lose your home, your loved ones, your land, to live in fear or anger day in, day out.
Next, take a bowl, consecrated for the purpose, and fill it with water, preferably from a river/sea/spring/well, though tap water will also be fine. Be aware that water is a connector, a carrier and holder of information. The seas divide continents, they also carry the moontides,
touching every shore. The rivers divide hills, they also form the heart of towns and cities, carrying traders and travellers through the land. Our blood-tides, our dream lives, are pulled by the moon, just as the sea ebbs and flows.
Water is a basic life necessity for both rich and poor, and controlling the water supply is a powerful tool of authority - dams are built, wells poisoned in the name of dominion over a people.
Imagine the water cycle, from your bowl, water running, perhaps back again into the river, downstream, tumbling, merging with other rivers, cascading and spiralling in long journeys, widening into valleys and marshes, out to the mud-rich estuaries and into the surging saltwater
of the sea, the restless hiss and hush of the ocean, passing between lands, touching beaches of sand and stone, water swept up by wind and sun into the atmosphere, gathering again in cloud formations of white and grey and blue and black until the winds change, the land rises again and
rain falls, soaking into the earth, into thirsty plants and animals and people, sinking, filtering down into deep underground streams, to flow in the dark again until once more the rocks change, a spring bubbles up, a rivulet, a stream emerges and trickles downhill, through black bogs and tiny valleys and silver brooks. How does it feel to be thirsty? How would it feel if there was no clean water to drink? How does it feel to be hot, tired, sticky with sweat? How does it feel when you sink into a bath or plunge into an ice-cold stream, or swim between the waves?
You could speak aloud a prayer of your own creation, for peace, or you could simply hold the images of water in the understanding that water is an essential element to life on this planet, it is shared by all. Allow your blessing for peace to pass into your bowl of water, and then, taking it again to a river, or to the sea, release it with the intent that it carries your blessing to all in need of peace and the inspiration to resolve conflict.
You may choose to drink some of the blessed water yourself, or perhaps to bring some of it to an equinox celebration, where it can be communally released into the waters of your land.
(from druidnetwork.net)
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