Water and Belonging

Jan 25, 2025

While reading botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book “Gathering Moss,”* I came across a few facts about the molecular nature of water that resonated with my experiences in Continuum practice.  

Water molecules have both positive and negative charge. This leads to two very interesting abilities.

Because of this dual polarity, water is optimized for adhering to many different surfaces.

Water molecules can also easily cohere to each other due to this feature of having both positive and negative poles. In this way, water molecules gather together.

These thoughts were swimming around in my consciousness while I was in a Continuum exploration. I was alternating bathing my entire body in the vibration of humming with my hands resting at my heart and lungs, with lightly stroking my skin with my hands while sounding “Sh.” The humming was helping me to a greater awareness of the pulsation of circulation within me. The “Sh” stroking of my skin was attuning me to the outer tangible membrane of my body which contained my vibrating fluid filled body.

In the next element of the exploration, I began a slow meandering press through various parts of my body into the surfaces below me. This meandering pressing movement brought me to the felt sense of my water body adhering to the ground. As I slowly pressed, I also felt an internal pouring following the pathways of pressing. My internal fluids were cohering in response to the surface pressing of my body.

I was moving very minutely. I felt very present and connected to the ground.  I felt a deep sense of emotional satisfaction. What came forward was this phrase:
“Water belongs – there is no question about existence or purpose.
Like water - I belong - because I am primarily made of water.”

The message emerged from my experience of the adherent and coherent qualities of water molecules.  

The water within me is categorized into different types of fluid depending on function and chemical constituents. What we call blood inside of our vessels when seeped out of capillaries becomes interstitial fluid. When that fluid becomes old, it becomes part of our lymphatic system. Like the water molecules in a waterfall entering a river which eventually enters the ocean – our internal water molecules gather into “communities of purpose” in an ongoing state of chemical transformation. The quality of belonging continues as water molecules change their chemistry to meet each phase of existence.

This ability to meet the moment - so useful in life - turns out to be built into my biology and physiology.

I can “belong” and “transform” due to the nature of water molecules who model the way inside of me every moment of my existence. The living world around me models these processes as well.

Belonging is not outside of me. Being a part of a living community is not something to yearn for. I belong and I am a part of the living world due to the nature of water.  My experiences in Continuum bring this understanding more strongly into my awareness, for which I am grateful. How many cases of depression and emotional suffering could be avoided by encountering the nature of water within like we do in Continuum? In what ways could our lives, families and communities benefit from the lived understanding of water molecules?

*Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Gathering Moss,” OSU Press, 2003. With gratitude to CTA colleague Elisabeth Osgood-Campbell for gifting me with this treasure of a book.

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