World WATER Day and a Rilke Poem

I found this poetic vision at a site for the Rilke poem which I posted below here Notice the SUNlight. I end this post with a photo that also offers light.

(By the way, looking for other items related to human rights and health? Scroll right below...)



The Baglihar hydroelectric dam on the river Chenab from Indian-controlled Kashmir into Pakistan

The Chenab, fed with glacial meltwaters from the Himalayas, has for centuries supplied essential irrigation for the area. However, last summer farmers began to notice the levels of both the river and groundwater begin to fall significantly.

The crisis in the agricultural heartland of Pakistan apparently relates (at least in large part) to the Chenab, one of a series of waterways that bisect the Punjab, which means 'five rivers'.

Crucial, coveted and increasingly scarce, water has been growing scarce for farmers in Pakistan's breadbasket. How might peacemakers in both India and Pakistan and perhaps "Water Activists" make a peaceful change for the better? Local farmers (especially in a breadbasket) SORELY need and deserve water. What would we want done for us if we were in their shoes? What is happening with one of the most important rivers in the world and in the subcontinent?

A group of more than 20 different UN bodies and many other groups have been warning that the world may be close to its first water war. They have been trying to inform the world that water is tied to the crises of climate change, energy and food supplies and prices, and troubled financial markets. We have been and ARE being solemnly warned that unless the links with water are addressed in all these other major issues and water crises around the world are resolved, other crises may intensify. Local water crises ARE worsening already and beginning to converge
into a global water crisis. Let's all do our part to prevent this crisis from leading to even more political insecurity and conflict.

I for one am solemnly pledging to add WATER to one of my concerns, prayers and actions for peace. What can we do around home? What might we do to get the word out and to support those who need water (and CLEAN water as well) - both locally and globally?

Be sure to see these amazing, beautiful and some heart-wrenching photos (the one with the child drinking from outdoor faucet looking SO thirsday reminded me to save the water from an indoor drip until I could get it fixed) here

Now, some of the readers to this humble little attempt at a peaceblog may notice that I'm slowly trying to nurture who I am as well as what I seek to do. Who I am at heart is a Poet and Contemplative as well as a free-lance writer and peace organizer/activist. So more and more I want to include the poetic, contemplative and artistic aspects I most honor. I for one ALSO need those elements to "get the job done" more effectively and more joyfully over time.

So, here on WORLD WATER DAY I offer some SPIRITUAL WATER to nurture our deepest center. I offer Rilke to GIVE us courage in our efforts for peace, concern for basic needs for the least powerless and for the sustainability of the world's wounded resources. This poem was sent out by an amazing friend - a Pakistani woman who works daily and untiringly for the voiceless and powerless. She is my Heroine! and Rilke has always been among my favorite poets:

(The following also found in Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousnes.

Give me your hand.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

Final Note: I wrote a poem a long time ago called "Water Against Rocks" which is STILL today an important metaphor for me about how peace and water work with rocks and walls and people over time and how important not to give up...nor to think that we can function without process, art, nature or help from "other" Divine resources.
Today can be our best first step toward peace and for water improvement for generations. Let's multiply who we ARE and what we DO by millions. Then let's multiply that by future generations to see how effective we really are with LOVE!

Photograph by Scottyboipdx Weber

The sun sets over Lower Lewis River Falls in Washington State’s Gifford Pinchot National Forest in the USA. "The falls mark a wild and scenic stretch of the river, but other sections of the Lewis, which drains the state’s mighty Cascade Range, boast large dam and reservoir systems.Hydroelectric plants produce power, but they’ve changed the river’s natural character—to the special detriment of migratory fish like salmon. Utilities have agreed to begin trucking fish around the dams along the Lewis River, moving them from below these looming barriers to prime habitat upstream, above the dams." (credit to National Geographic and Huff Post)

See more photos and videos at here And below...

--