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The River Wild:
A Celebration of Our Connection With the Spirits of Wild Rivers
From MoonWeb
With every faucet leading back to a body of fresh water, the interweaving of our lives with the life of aquatic ecosystems is undeniable. The double-edged sword of technology, while allowing us nearly instant access to water, also has distanced us from the awareness of our dependence on rivers. We bridge this distance by bringing our needs into balance with the needs of the waterways.
As a society we need to question the uses to which we put water and the means we use to obtain it. We ask much of our environment—at times pressing it beyond its ability to sustain life. The sacrifices we ask of our natural surroundings are often unjustifiable. This is especially true of the fragile ecosystems that make up wild rivers. Each individual's activities can affect the course of a river's life, for good or for ill—too often these days, for ill.
This ritual invites undines from your bio-region to share their insight with you in a quest to empower you to help preserve your local water systems. The pathwork encourages you to follow a mythic river from its glacial beginnings to its end at the edge of the world.
This isn't a simple, one step ritual—it requires sustained activity over a period of weeks. It also has the option of incorporating a blood oath to signal your commitment to preserving the rivers of the world. As always, we welcome your feedback.
Pathwork: Call of the Cataract
Find a comfortable place where you will not be disturbed. Ground and center, according to your personal practice. When you find yourself relaxed, close your eyes and breathe deeply and regularly.
The silence is deep. Mostly you are aware of tactile sensations: the clammy chill of a fine mist on your arms and face; the breeze, cool from passing over ice, against your skin; the sponginess of the moss beneath you. Into the silence come the faint, contralto notes of water melting from a great glacier; frozen water trapped for millennia, dripping free from the face of the sapphire-blue ice. Listen closely to the rhythm of the falling droplets, a rhythm that gradually comes to sound like language to you. At first, it is as though the language is a foreign tongue, a tongue as old as the glaciers themselves. Gradually, you pick words here and there that you understand. Soon you begin to understand what the melting water is telling you. Pause now and remember this message.
In your mind's eye, follow the water as it rushes off the glacier and down into the valleys below. The voice of the water changes. Now you hear the rich gurgling of brook over stone, the slip and splash of hundreds of tiny wavelets against each other, the life of creatures in the water—fishes, salamanders, crayfish, otters. As you listen to the stream, you begin to discern yet another language—a newer, yet still foreign, tongue. As before, you gradually pick out words, then phrases, and soon you are able to understand the wisdom of the stream. Pause here and remember this message.
When you are ready to move along, follow the stream as it merges with other streams, becomes a river, deep and wide and powerful. The voice of the river is different from the voice of the stream—deep and full of subtext. It is both quieter and more powerful. You hear the sucking and pulling of whirlpools and eddies, the voice of acres of topsoil dissolved in the water, the grinding of logs and rocks and branches in the water. Here is yet a third language. Soon you are able to understand it as well and comprehend the message of the river. Pause here to remember it.
Follow the river. It speeds up, rushing faster and faster. In the distance you hear a faint roar that rapidly grows in volume. The river rushes over the edge of the world, spinning out into infinity, falling forever into darkness, crushing stars and worlds with its weight. It speaks to you in the voice of eternity. Pause and remember this message.
Gradually, the roar of the cataract dies back to the swirling river, the gurgling brook, the dripping glacier—dies back to the silence in which you began this meditation. Breathe deeply and regularly, when you are ready, return to waking reality and remember what you have been told.
The River Wild
You will need to bring with you a phial of water and bowl to contain it (see below). You will also need either red wine or a lancet to draw a drop of blood.
Beginning with the New Moon, collect fresh clean water from a source of running water local to you. This could be a spring, stream, river—or a faucet. Keep the water in a clear glass container. Each night between the New Moon and the Full, hold the water in the moonlight so that the moonbeams pass through the glass, feeling the power of the moon build in the water each night. Each time, speak the following invocation to the undines, or a similar one of your own choosing:
Blessed by Sun and blessed by Moon,
Blessed by word, and thought and Rune
Is the water of river, spring and lake.
May it now the forms of undines take.
Take the phial of water with you to the place you've chosen for your ritual on the night of the Full Moon. Ground and center according to your personal custom, except that if you traditionally ground into the earth, try grounding your energy into a body of water. When you are fully relaxed, continue with the ritual. At each of the four compass quarters, invoke the spirits of these major rivers, or other rivers of your choosing or in your bioregion:
East:
I invoke you, spirits of the Huang He, yellow pearl of the Orient. Flow through us, bring us inspiration.
South:
I invoke you, spirits of the Amazon, densely jungled home of the anaconda. Flow through us, bring us passion.
West:
I invoke you, spirits of the Mississippi, river of mud. Flow through us, bring us intuition.
North:
I invoke you, spirits of the Volga, born of tundra and glacial ice. Flow through us, bring us stability.
Uncork the phial of water and pour it out into the bowl. Welcome the undines with this or a similar rune:
Come ye undines who would come.
Stay ye undines who would stay.
Not by life, but love, I ask.
To aid me in this sacred task.
Draw a symbol of invocation in the air above the bowl (such as an invoking pentagram) and watch as the undines manifest themselves. (They may manifest differently for each person.) When you believe that the undines have made themselves present, communicate to them (in whatever way you feel comfortable) your desire that they help you discover ways to restore the Earth's rivers to balance and health. Be prepared with a pen and paper to write down any inspiration that may come during this period; when you feel that you have communicated fully with the undines, proceed with the rest of the ritual. Ask the undines to witness your oath of resolve to honor your commitment to the health of the rivers.
Spirits from the waters sprung,
Bear witness to my oath this day,
Born of hope and sealed with blood.
Carry life to rivers' flood.
Such an oath would traditionally be sealed with actual blood dropped into the water in the bowl (a drop or two, preferably taken with a sterile lancet that is immediately placed in a plastic container of bleach solution). You may wish to substitute red wine for the blood.
If it is your practice to perform a ceremony of cakes and wine, do so now with the undines as your honored guests. A pathwork may also be done at this time. You may also think of additional ways to help restore the river ecosystems of the world—write them down as they come to you.
When you are ready to end the ritual, thank the spirits of the four rivers for lending their counsel. Release the Circle if you have formally cast one.
Now make your way to a nearby source of running water. Release the undines into the stream of water, visualizing as you do so your energy and theirs flowing throughout the river in ecology, creating health and vitality. Bid the undines farewell and pleasant journeys.
Resources
American Rivers, 801 Pennsylvania Ave. SE Suite 400, Washington, DC 20003 (202/547-6900; fax 202/543-6142)
How To Save A River: A Handbook For Citizen Action. David M, Bolling, River Network. (1994, Island Press, ISBN 1-559-63250-X (pbk).)
EDITORIAL This ritual is from `MoonWeb, an occasional publication of Circle Cithaeron, a scholar's circle and teaching collective following an Eldrytch Tradition of work with wild nature. MoonWeb is free for the cost of postage at the rate of two U.S. first-class stamps per issue (or their equivalent in international postal coupons). MoonWeb is free from copyright, and permission is enthusiastically granted to photocopy, publish, digitize, or telepathically transmit the contents, in whole or in part, as long as its parentage is acknowledged. For more information, please write Circle Cithaeron, PO Box 15461, Washington, DC 20003. | 
