Good morning, Friends! While other parts of the country are experiencing flooding, unusual late snows, deadly tornadoes and early heat, here on the high plains south of Santa Fe we are dust-dry.
I checked the US Drought Monitor this morning, and my county is officially in “severe” drought, smack in the middle of the drought categories. Which means we’re not in as bad shape as the parts of Southern New Mexico in exceptional drought, and we’re not in as good shape as other parts of the state only in mild drought.
Still, it’s not pretty. The flush of green that washed the grasses in the high desert after we got a quarter-inch of rain last week has faded, and the soil is dry and deeply cracked.
All of which reminds me to be grateful for the blessing of fresh water that runs through the pipes of my community water system, drawn from wells deep underground, to supply my house.
My community does not allow lawns and other water-intensive vegetation because we live in a perennially arid landscape, drought or no, and because our water is groundwater, a finite supply that is recharged very slowly and only in years of good snowpack and rainfall. Which this year is not.
But we are allowed to water small gardens right around our houses. Twice a week, in the early morning or evening when evaporation is lowest.
Today is my watering day, so when I returned from my sunrise walking meditation, I unrolled my hose and hand-watered my little courtyard garden with its newly planted big sagebrush, little bluestem grass, sacred datura, penstemons, and in a shade patch on one side, long-spurred columbines. All native plants, all somewhat drought-tolerant, but like all life, all needing water to survive.
We humans are particularly dependent on fresh water—we are some 60 percent water by weight, and we can survive weeks longer without food than we can without water.
As I watered, I thought about an essay I wrote for the Denver Post years ago, and which has been revised and appeared in several other places, including the anthology Going Green, edited by novelist and essayist Laura Pritchett.
My life and my plumbing have changed since I wrote this piece. My husband has been dead for nearly 13 years, I live in New Mexico instead of Colorado and my plumbing is connected to a septic system that returns my “used” water to the ground near by house, where it sinks back the into the aquifer from which it comes.
But the point of the piece—a need to reconnect in a mindful way with the water that flows out of my taps—is the same.
I still regard fresh, running water as a blessing, not a right, and I still practice a spiritual connection with the water I use.
Here is that essay, in gratitude for the two percent of our planet’s water that is fresh, the water that sustains us all.
Throwing Out the Dishwater
Once I lived in a one-room log cabin where I pumped my water from a well and heated it on a wood stove. When I was finished washing my dishes, I carried the dishpan outside and tossed the water on the nearby sagebrush.
It seemed natural to me to return the water to the same ground I pumped it from. The extra “rain” from my dishpan nurtured the patch of sagebrush off my tiny porch, keeping it green and fragrant even in dry years. I was careful not to foul my supply: my disposal site was far from the well itself and the groundwater deep beneath the surface was buffered by the natural filter of soil atop layers of porous gravel.
Nowadays my house is serviced via pipes from the main under the street. Water appears at the twist of a faucet handle and vanishes in a swirl down the drain, with no effort on my part.
Such easy access is a mixed blessing. My valley, along with other areas of the West, is entering its tenth year of drought, despite recent snows. After watching an extraordinary February heat wave suck the snow off the peaks and the moisture from the soil, I grew more and more uneasy.
Water is a limited commodity here, but you wouldn’t know it by turning on your tap. No matter the amount of precipitation we receive - whether briefly generous or so scant it portends drought - our municipal supply pours out unchecked.
I miss the effort I used to expend on drawing water: turn on the pump, wait for it to pull liquid from below the surface, open the faucet to fill the storage vessels, and lug them down the hill and across the porch into the cabin.
The pumping time and flow varied from season to season, and year to year with the variation in precipitation. Carrying the water from pump to cabin gave me direct feedback on my consumption: at seven pounds per gallon, I felt every cup. It was a powerful incentive for conservation.
I’m not going to rip out my plumbing. Still, when late winter turned in hot and dry, I wanted to do something to honor the reality of the water supply I depend on. After some discussion, my husband and I bought a dishpan to collect the water from our kitchen sink, which we pour onto our compost pile.
The dishpan holds 11.4 quarts, slightly less than three gallons, and we empty it three times a day. That’s a little over eight gallons of water, a small fraction of the 271 gallons each person in my community consumes per day on average.
But it’s enough to remind me that the water I use does not come free: energy to run pumps and purifiers and add manufactured chemicals is required to move it from ditches and wells to my house to sewage plant to river.
Spilling the dishwater onto my compost pile, I am returning some of what I use every day to the soil, where it can percolate through the layers, cleansed by the lives under the surface, and recharge the aquifer I draw from.
I’m also breaking the law. The Uniform Plumbing Code defines dishwater as “blackwater,” the equivalent of household toxic waste, and forbids its disposal except into septic or sewage systems.
That infraction is a matter of sanitation. Ours is vegetarian dishwater, free of the animal flesh and fat that cause contamination, so I am confident of the ability of the microbes in our compost pile to sanitize it at least as well as any sewage plant.
Throwing out our dishwater won’t solve my community’s water problems, but it will hone my awareness. It is a private act, an everyday ritual that links me to the consequences of my actions: the more water I use, the more dishpans I haul.
It is also a spiritual choice. By taking responsibility for my used water, instead of consigning it to someone else down the drain, I commit myself to honesty about my impact on this landscape. In that small way, I acknowledge that my fate rests with that of the community of beings dependent on the natural cycles of weather and water and time.
As I spill out the dishwater, I honor the connection between the water that sustains my life and the piece of earth I call home.
May you find a way to honor the fresh water you use, and its connection to the earth where you live. Blessings!
Little bluestem, penstemons, and columbine. I have these in my garden as well, and it makes me smile that you also have them in yours. We have had a lot of water here this spring, enough to lift us from a drought. That water came with strong storms that caused considerable damage to several communities. I’m so grateful for the rain and saddened by the damage. I have pondered hooking up an “illegal” grey water system to my washer to use as extra gardening water. We use plant friendly laundry soap. Thanks for reminding us about the tiny fraction of fresh water we all depend on.
Water is precious and easy to take for granted. She is miraculous and a wonder. Your essay is a deep dive into caring for water and appreciating all she is. Thank you!