A book that has had a very big impact on me is called ‘The Nature Way’ – The teachings of Shoshone Elder Corbin Harney – written and researched by Alex Purbrick published by University of Nebraska.
A Key teaching that runs throughout the book is to constantly pray and sing for the life of the water because one day ‘the water is going to look like water, but the life spirit will be gone from it’.
This is happening all over the planet with water pollution from a variety of sources such as agricultural run-off, dumping of industrial waste and underground nuclear testing. This displaces not just people but the plants, trees, animals, fish and insects because everything is dependent on water. As the population of global humanity has grown and ever more pressure has been inflicted on the land, air and water, to generate power, feed everyone and provide recourses we have become ever more out of sync with the natural world, seeing it as a commodity that we can use and abuse, destroying habitats and ecosystems forcing ever more creatures to extinction.
These paintings are my prayers for the water.