National Water Center, Eureka Springs, Arkansas
         

National Water Center, Eureka Springs, AR

Updated: April 2014 Contact: Contact: NWC

Contents ©1999-2014 by National Water Center. All rights reserved worldwide.

Table of Contents for AquaTerra - Please see excerpts below.

"A fascinating plunge into molecular physics, Mayan calendars, geochemistry , bioregionalism, dolphin communities, healing, hydrogen fuel, dowsing, vortices, geophysics and other water related topics that brings together the ideas of a wide variety of scholars - from Këthe Seidel, the grandmother of modern biological wastewater treatment, and John Todd, one of its foremost current practitioners to Sulak Sivaraksa, Thailand's ecological Buddhist philosopher - creating a timely book for a civilization that has lost its reverence for water." 

Scott Whittier Chaplin, Rocky Mountain Institute

AquaTerra Excerpts

From 'An Ecological Heretic: Sulak Sivaraksa on Siam Water' 
page 96 

In our tradition, Water is very, very important. The whole of nature consists of the four elements, Water, Fire, Earth and Air Once these four elements are in balance in the cosmos, natural law, our own well being results. If they are not balanced, the end. That is why we are brought up to respect Water. 

The river is our Mother Water. Like the Earth, Air, Fire, they are all our Mother. Once you pay close respect to the four elements, I think they will help replenish you. And of course at the same time, it is essential that sometime we harm them, knowingly and unknowingly. 

For most people, if you live by the water, you pollute the water. For the Buddhist Monks, it is not possible to pollute the water. The monks are not allowed to cut trees, not allowed to till the land; they have no profession. If their lifestyle is not worth it, they will die because they do not earn a living. That's why we offer them food, we offer them clothing, we offer them shelter and medicine. 

For most of us that have professions, we have to cut trees, we have to clear the land, and sometimes we have to pollute the water. But knowing that, you have ask for forgiveness from Water. If you have to polluted it too much, it will be bad for you, bad for the Mother Water. Being aware sometimes, we pollute the water. I think that that's essential. But ask for forgiveness, ask for cleansing - Water cleansing you and you cleansing the Water. 

In our religion during the full moon of the month of November, we float candles on the water, asking the Mother Water to forgive us for polluting her..... 

From Beautiful Bulrushes, Remarkable Reeds' - page 86 

In Brazil we demonstrated that hot and highly acid wastewater from a  eucalyptus sawmill could be recycled through plants. We could not find the reeds there, but found other plants that also work. There is so much that can be done. All normal wastewater from human habitations can easily be directed into small streams planted with rushes or reeds and reclaimed at least for agriculture. Pathogenic bacteria are so quickly and easily destroyed.......  

From Committee to Communion' - page 105 

My experiences of direct communications with the Water began at the fourth North American Bioregional Congress in 1990 in the Kennebec River Watershed on the Gulf of Main. When the Water committee met on a dock at Lake Cobboseecontee, I informed them after eleven years of working on Water issues, I was frustrated by the enormity of the problems. I felt like bursting into tears or screaming when I heard unending stories about sitting landfills on the headwaters of the river or constructing a sewage treatment plant on another pristine creek. I couldn't sit and talk about these atrocities. The other members of the Water Committee where sympathetic and it was agreed that we should give thanks to Water. 

Barbara Harmony