The Tao of Water

I am an amateur blogger. 
I am a professional humanitarian aid worker in the water sector.
I am thus obliged to participate in this here incredible extravaganza called “Blog Action Day 2010 Water.” 

But don’t think I do so begrudgingly.  To save the world, you have to focus and today that focus fits me pretty well.

* * *

Water is simple: three atoms, two elements, one small molecule.

Add another molecule and those tricky little hydrogen bonds start complicating things. Water doesn’t behave the way it should. Water is subversive. Little rascal. And that is precisely what makes it important.

Add solutes, energy, people and the rest of the world and water gets complicated. Very complicated. Very quickly. And very important.

* * *

A link poem
(But don’t let the links distract you just yet…)

Water is or is not
accessible, distributed, shared,
contaminated, cleaned, protected,
managed, exploited, recycled,
used.

Water creates or controls
diarrhea, malaria, malnutrition, 
HIV, health, bodies,
food, animals, products, energy,
productivity, livelihoods, economics,
life.

Water detains or develops
women’s choices, education, social structures,
religion, land issues, conflicts, wars,
politics, corruption, human rights,
history.

Water is oceans, tsunamis, floods and droughts, climate change.

Water is simply
part of a complex
violent, calm, deplorable, luxurious
system of which we are
a small part.

 
*  *  *

Words on a blog are linear. Water is not linear.

If you spread out all those words in a circle on the floor, take colored string or paint or sand, and started connecting each idea to all those others with which it has a relationship, you would end up with incredible art, perhaps a mandala, about water. One day I will do this.

* * *

Today, I will let others take you on the journey through those ideas. Although I am qualified, I will let others explain and expand on that simple list of words. I will let others cite numbers and statistics.

Get out of your pool (so you don't ruin the computer), sit in the shade (so you can see the screen) and follow links and learn about water and the world in which we live.

Trust me, water shapes your world and a world bigger than yours. Those iron-sheeting shacks, those mud-pressed-in-sticks huts, those billion slum/desert/jungle dwelling worlds aren’t so far from yours.

(But please, please, I beg you… remember two things: Hiesenberg and Bias).

* * *

Today, my contribution will be an introduction to the Tao of Water.

You have probably heard of the Tao Te Chieng. It is a series of 81 chapters of (sometimes cryptic, always relevant) Chinese wisdom compiled around 500 B.C. in which water is a reoccurring theme (my bias).

In chapters 8, 15, 32, 36, 39, 43, 61, 66 and 78, water or its properties are mentioned.

8:
Higher good is like water: the good in water benefits all, and does so without contention. It rests where people dislike to be, so it is close to the Way.
Where it dwells becomes good ground;

15:
…their relaxation was as that of ice at the melting point. Simple as uncarved wood, open as valleys, they were inscrutable as murky water.
Who can, in turbidity,
use the gradual clarification of stillness?

32:

Heaven and earth combine, thus showering sweet dew. No humans command it; it is even by nature.
The Way is to the world as rivers and oceans to valley streams.

36:
This is called subtle illumination. Flexible and yielding overcome adamant coerciveness.

39:
When unity was attained of old, heaven became clear by attaining unity
valley streams were filled by attaining unity…
What brought this about was unity:
without means of clarity, heaven may burst; without means of steadiness, earth may erupt; without means of quickening, spirit may be exhausted; without means of filling,
valley streams may dry up,

43:
What is softest in the world drives what is hardest in the world.

61:
A great nation flows downward into intercourse with the world.

66:
The reason why rivers and seas can be lords of the hundred valleys is that they lower themselves to them all;

78:
Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it.

(Translations used without permission, although I have indeed purchased the book from which they came and recommend it as a nice translation. From THE ESSENTIAL TAO - Translated and presented by Thomas Cleary)

* * *

Words to live by. Literally.

I hope you enjoy Blog Action Day about water. I hope you let the links destract you.

I hope you stick around and check out my adventures and adventrues.

I hope you leave a comment. Do you have a link that might fit in my poem? Did I miss a water reference in the Tao?

* * *

End note 1

In doing what I do, I work in a broader field than just water. We have a nifty acronym: WASH. This stands for water, sanitation and hygiene (though I try as much as I can to get even boarder than that). As a wild WASH woman, it is my duty to also share with you some related news about today, October 15, 2010:

Today is also Global Handwashing Day.

Handwashing is important. It the most cost effective way to prevent diarrhea (Lancet). More so than clean water. Admittably, water helps in washing hands… (although when you are in the dessert, rubbing your hands with dirt and sand can also clean them), but don’t get me started on handwashing, just check out some of the interesting stuff online. (Just remember Hiesenberg and bias as you read.)

* * *

End note 2

“I am an expert.”  (hits television…)

I have asked you readers to trust my qualifications, to trust that I know what I am talking about, to trust I have some authority to blog about water and that maybe my links here are “good” ones. In fact, I do.
I don’t mean to sound egotisitical (although sometimes I play that game here in blog-land), and in fact I am quite humble and insecure.

“…and thorough.”

My point is not my personality, but rather if you don’t trust me (and why should you?), drop a comment and I’ll send you my CV (especially if you want to hire me).