Reflections on Sustainability: "Water Is Life"

Written last May, this post brings together themes I've been mulling over for several months. It's taken a little time for me to get my head and heart around what seems to me to be the only message at this time. I plan to publish other posts soon centering on the same theme: the Health of Our Planet, Our Spaceship, Mother Earth, and what we can learn from Her Original Peoples—in Mexico, yes, of course; but also in the Western Hemisphere, and around the world.

Personal History Tells Bigger Story

I was born in Chicago six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. As a Reserve Army Officer, my father was called up and stationed in California. My mother and I joined him there. When the war ended, my Dad—a civil engineer—looked around and concluded, "A lot of people here need water and sewage treatment plants." Given that water was his specialty, he decided to stay. He wasn't alone.

In 1940, California's population was 6.95 million. At the war's end (1945), it had swelled to 9.3 million. When I graduated from high school (1959), it was 15.47 million; at my college graduation (1963), it was 17.67 million. By 1970, it had risen to 19.97 million. In just thirty years (1940-1970), California's population had nearly tripled.

But that wasn't anywhere near the end of the Golden State's explosive growth. By 2014, it stood at 38.8 million—that's nearly double what it had been in 1970! One thing was absolutely certain: Everyone needed water.

Over the course of his 30-plus year, post-WWII civil engineering career, my father put in if not the majority, then a significant share of the water and sewage treatment plants up, down and across California. In retirement, he told me that across the years he had watched the water tables consistently drop: "I've never seen them restored. 'They' are going to have to fix that."

Given California's epic four-year drought, it appears the time has come for 'them' to take action. Governor Jerry Brown's executive order mandating a 25 percent decrease in urban water usage may have been historic. Yet Robert Reich asks a good question (Facebook, 4/4/2015):

Why did Governor Jerry Brown exempt Big Oil and Big Agriculture from his order this week to cut water consumption by 25 percent? Big Oil uses more than 2 million gallons of fresh water a day in California for fracking, acidizing, and steam injections – nearly 70 million gallons last year alone. Meanwhile, California’s farmers consume 80 percent of the water used in the state but generate only 2 percent of the state’s economic activity.

Oddly, the Governor’s order focuses on urban water use, which makes up less than a quarter of the water consumed here. California could save the same amount of water by requiring its farmers to increase water efficiency by 5 percent. And in this seismically-challenged state, there’s no reason to continue allowing water-intensive fracking, which has been shown to increase the likelihood of earthquakes (just look at Oklahoma).

Mexico's Original Peoples Knew It First: Water Is Life

The seventh anniversary of our arrival in Mexico to stay came up last July. For the first three years, we had the good fortune to have lived in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. The people of this pueblo mágico gave us an unparalleled opportunity to become acquainted with the guiding cosmovision, myths and traditions of Mexico's original peoples.

Early posts in Jenny's Journal told stories about what we were learning and experiencing. One of the earliest on this theme is: Mesoamerican Culture: The Human Bond with Nature (8/22/2011). Two years later: The Enduring Power of Mexico's Natural Forces (9/19/2013). Both cite the oft-repeated Mexican dicho, saying, El agua es vida—Water is Life.

If I were to sum up our experience, I would say: Living in partnership with the earth; e.g., Mexico's Volcanoes & Mesoamerican Mythology (1/11/2012). One of my all-time favorite posts focuses precisely on that theme: "I Am the Earth."

The longer we live here, the more it becomes clear that familiarity with this ancient cosmovision lends cultural texture to much of what we encounter in Mexico. For example, toward the end of his formal announcement of a Zapatista conference scheduled for last May 3, 2015, Zapatista Subcomandante Galeano (nee Subcomandante Marcos) wrote:

Conference Begins on May 3. Why May 3? 

In our villages, May 3 is the day of planting, fertility, harvest. It is the day of the seed, the day of Santa Cruz, Holy Cross. In the pueblos, villages it is customary to plant a cross where the river begins, at the gully or spring that gives life to the settlement. This is how the place is shown to be sacred. It is sacred because the water gives life. 

May 3 is the day of asking for water for planting and a good harvest. On that day, the villagers go to give offerings where the waters are born. Or rather, as they speak to the water, they give it their flowers, they give it the bowl of atole (corn-based beverage), their incense, their salt-free pozole (chicken-corn soup). In other villages, they give a little drink, but alcohol is prohibited in Zapatista villages, so they offer a soda to the water. The pozole offered to the water is without salt, so the water doesn't dry up. During this ceremony of offering, they play music and everyone begins to dance—men, women, children, young people, old people—everyone!

When the offering ends, the socializing begins. The comida (food) they brought is shared: atole, chicken, beans, pumpkin. All the food is eaten communally at the very source of the life-giving water. When the meal ends, the people return to their houses. And now for pure joy, they continue the dance in the village and, still together as a community, they eat and have coffee with bread.

So there it is:

Zapatista vision infused with traditional Maya myth and custom overlaid with a patina of Roman Catholic Christianity: Holy Cross.

In distinct contrast to the so-called 'modern' approach taken in California by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown.

Qué te vaya bien ... May it go well with you.