March 28th, 2020

The Washing of Hands as a Sacred Act
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We are being told we must wash our hands. After we touch our face. After we touch a door handle. After we are outside. And if we can't remember the last time we wash, we wash again.

Water is Life.

We are washing our hands much more often and for longer periods than ever before. We are told that singing "Happy Birthday" will give the optimal length of time for removing all traces of the virus hitching a ride on our hands.

Water is Life.

What if, while we scrub and watch the bubbles clearing away and neutralizing harmful microbes, we remember that the clean drinking water pouring out the faucet is precious, necessary, and finite. That we bring to our consciousness how privileged we are to have not just water, but clean, pure drinking water, at the mere turn of a knob and how carelessly we are indifferent to this gift.

Water is Life.

What if, during those 20 seconds, whilst scouring between our fingers and under our fingernails, we were to turn off the flow of water and take those moments in time to root ourselves, to ground, and to send out a blessing and a prayer of gratitude for the water that will rinse away the remains of the microscopic particles waging war on humanity. Suppose, instead of singing and repeating Happy Birthday, an easy ditty that marks time (yet also represents our obsession with the individual), we breathed deeply into the awareness of the water that flows in our own bodies, carrying nutrients, hydrating cells, and giving us life.

Water is Life.

What if we turned off the water, slowed down for a moment as we washed, and offered our own personal prayers of the moment. Prayers for loved ones, for those on the front lines in our hospitals working to save lives, for the planet who is having a moment of respite from our ceaseless consumption, for humanity. What if we all placed our favorite passage, poem, song, or prayer on the mirror over the sink, and recited it with purpose and intention. What if we honored those collections of 20 seconds with the respect they are due, as they very well may be saving our lives. What life would you like to live? The Happy Birthday life as you knew it? Or is there a way to go deeper, to be more connected, more grounded, with a remembrance that we are all of this earthstuff? What if this time is a gift, an opportunity to participate in a shift toward greater awareness of what we are, what we want to create, and how we wish to make manifest our own personal connection to this planet and all that live here.

Water is Life.
Let us honor it.