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The days grow short, the gatherings begin, and someone is not there. These gentle things from The Well Being of Water: Surrender to Self are for the weeks ahead: for you, or for someone you love who is missing someone this year.
Go gently. Grief has no schedule and no right way. Take one thing from this page, or none. Silence is a full answer.
In the Water Year, the holidays fall across three times: one to stay, one to return to what is sacred, and one to rest.
“Presence is the most powerful medicine. Sometimes the most healing thing we can offer is simply to stay ~ to hold the threshold, witness the crossing, and let the silence say what words cannot.”
Passage Twelve, The Edge of Silence, p. 200
“What is sacred cannot be shamed out of us. It can be hidden, buried, silenced ~ but water remembers what we were taught before the world told us to forget.”
Passage Four, Performing Wudu, p. 88
“Rest is not laziness ~ it is the most radical act of trust. You do nothing. And yet you are held. And sometimes the most healing thing you can do is simply arrive ~ exactly as you are ~ and let the water say yes before you’ve explained yourself.”
Passage Ten, Floating Still, p. 172
Inspired by the book. Ten minutes or less, with whatever water is near: a bath, a glass, a creek, the rain.
Go gently in water. Never float alone, and if you have a health condition or are pregnant, check with your doctor before warm-water practices.
Write a few lines to someone you have lost. Read them aloud near water: a lake, a creek, even a bath. Let the water hold what words cannot.
Before a hard conversation, a prayer or a new beginning, wash your hands and face slowly, the way Amal Lana’s father did before prayer. No words are needed. Let the water mark the moment as sacred.
In warm water, float with support: a pool noodle, a rolled towel behind your head in the bath, or the hands of someone you trust. Do nothing for five minutes. The rest is the practice.
Sit near water with someone who is struggling. Don’t fix, advise or fill the silence. Simply stay for ten minutes, and let the water do the talking.
No need to answer today. If you write, it stays private on your own device.
Where in your life is someone or something asking not to be fixed ~ but simply to be witnessed?
Passage Twelve, The Edge of Silence, p. 201
Write your answer privately →What have you lost that was actually making room for something truer?
Passage Three, What Was Never Mine, p. 74
Write your answer privately →When did you last feel truly held ~ not managed, not maintained, but held ~ by a person, a place, or something greater than yourself?
Passage Six, Floating to Safety, p. 120
Write your answer privately →Grief can be heavier than any page. If it feels like too much to carry alone, please reach out to someone you trust, a grief counselor, or your doctor.
Amal Lana’s weekly letter walks the Water Year with you: each week’s passage, practice or question arrives in your inbox. Her newest writing appears there first.
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