Why Do We Love Water?

"Water you waiting for." - Sam Horn, author of SOMEDAY is not a Day in the Week

I'm often asked what inspired me to?set off on my Year by the Water, and I tell that story here.

At the heart of it though is that I love water. Always have. Always will.?As do many of the people I met on my travels who live on, by or near water.

The question is ... WHY?

It’s not just that water feels like home. (After all, we're made up of 67% water. All of us, each of us is a body of water.)

It's not just that it's our life-blood - that we and our world can't live without it.?

It’s not just that water is beautiful, calming and inspiring … all at the same time.

It’s not just that water is a muse. (Much like some people drop into a hypnotic state gazing at fire, I lose myself in a writer’s reverie while gazing at and working by water.)

It’s not just that it’s the perfect forum for freedom of movement. (We can swim, splash, play in it Float, sail, paddle board, raft and surf on it. Run and walk around it.)

For me, water makes my soul sing. The multi-faceted nature of it. The many yin-yang forms of it. The metaphorical epiphanies facilitated and fostered by it.

Though I'd share a few favorite "water" quotes to appreciate all her many influences: Enjoy!

1. “I feel most at home in the water. I disappear. That’s where I belong.” – Michael Phelps (Me too. Although I don’t disappear in water, I come alive in water.)

2. “To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” – Alan Watts (Yes, we trust and relax into this experience of being supported by water. )

3. “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.” – Isak Denison (If something goes wrong, all I have to do it get in water and it washes away the worries.)

4."We never know the worth of water 'til the well is dry." - Thomas Fuller (?Let's not take water for granted, let's honor it as the precious miracle it is.")

5. “Being on a boat that’s moving through the water, it’s so clear. Everything falls into place in terms of what’s important and what’s not.” – James Taylor (The puzzle pieces of life fall into place when we're moving through, in or around water.)

5. “The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.” – George Eliot (Oh, to realize the stream of life and stream of well-being that flows to and through us.)

6. “Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river.” – Jorge Louis Borges (Water and time are Rorschach tests. How we view them reveals how we view life.)

6. “Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast; in the stream where you least expect it there will be a fish.” – Ovid ( Yes to always having our hook of curiosity cast.)

7. “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” - Isaac Newton (Yes to exploring the ocean of truth before us)

8. Rumi said, "You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop."

As I traveled around the country and visited oceans, bays, waterways, streams, rivers and waterfalls … I was thrilled with their endless capacity to fill me with wonder, appreciation and awe. Water has become a non-negotiable for me.

How about you? Do you love the water? Why?

What role does it play in your life? How does it inspire you, center you, facilitate creativity?

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Want more stories about water? Check out Sam's SOMEDAY is Not a Day in the Week where she shares many examples, insights, and epiphanies from her YEAR BY THE WATER.