FLOW | FOR THE LOVE OF WATER
Water needs us to collaborate, to share, to pray, to co-create community, to sing and keep talking about our relationship and love for water … FLOW events are intended to offer community space to be with that relationship. Here is a short report of our first FLOW events in Chico, CA.
On March 17th and 18th 2108 Walking Water and MaMuse collaborated with local water representatives in Chico, CA for 2 events on water and community.
We held 2 events that guided the weekend and wove in prayer, song, community and dialogue:
On Saturday night we held a community circle together with Ali Meders-Knight of the Mechoopda Tribe and Ron Toppi representing the Run4Salmon campaign. With roughly 60 community members we shared story about Walking Water, history and education of local waterways, the Run4Salmon campaign and some current info from Jim Brobeck of Aqualliance. For example, the plan to raise the Shasta Dam is back on the table. All this woven in with songs and sharing offered by MaMuse.
There was a need highlighted for us all to come together and learn about the original ways of stewarding the lands and the waters. At least 2 initiatives arose through the evening and Ali will explore how to make them happen.
Throughout the evening we returned, again and again, to the theme of restoring relations; how do we do that by bearing witness, learning from the first peoples on ecological restoration, understanding the current issues in water management and bringing our voice.
On Sunday afternoon we all went to the local community watering hole with buckets of fresh flowers and our blessings. In gratitude we, young and old, lay the flowers on a screen…. each flower given its place to create a beautiful example of Mother Earth’s gifts. With song and celebration we then released it all to the river.
