It’s a still, gray day, a hint of dampness hovering — perfect for cleaning the remainder of the ditches.
The rain is not supposed to arrive before tomorrow afternoon, and the snow not before tomorrow night, but the low clouds and leaden sky call the forecast into question. Meanwhile, the absence of any wind allows for small burns even as it makes the digging process less dusty and invasive.
It’s all in the service of the tableau shown above: water running clear and fast below the wire, the better to feed the land and, eventually, the rest of us.
It’s a beautiful sight, the first flow down a given ditch. It reminds us that we have made it through another year, another winter, and are already embarked upon a new year that, given hard work and a bit of good luck, will lead us surely to a harvest of abundance before our world turns toward winter again.
But, as we were forced to learn anew last year, in such stark and unforgiving terms, none of it happens without the water.
Water here is, of course, a gift no matter the circumstances. Water is, as I have always said, the first medicine, the one that ushers us into the world and sustains us through our every moment in it. But there is nothing magical about its use; that is down entirely to hard work.
And the work of irrigation here is hard indeed.
It’s not merely that the routing of the water is done the old way, with shovels and earthen dams. It’s that the mechanisms for getting it here in the first place are also done the old way, with ditches dug and maintained by hand, weirs built of old wood and barbed wire and the occasional iron platte or bit of rebar. It’s that the weir gates are a mix of ancient wooden panels and still more ancient stones, mostly moved by hand to change the flow’s direction.
It’s that there is value in doing it in the old way, even as the dominant culture’s technology long ago made it unnecessary.
Enclosed pipes and automated sprinklers don’t get your hands in the water, close to the earth.
There is an elemental connection to season and process, one that immerses us in the immanent forces of our world. Earth, air, fire, water — all play a role now. Outside the window, there is a small orange glow upon the earthen bank of the east ditch; columnar smoke drifts softly upward on the air. The clouds hang low and heavy with rain, still undelivered of their burden. And upstream of the weir, the water rolls along, a bubble and flow of medicine of the greatest value, shimmering like diamonds and pearls in the pale light.
The pond is still this morning, no ripples or waves in the still, silent air. It is still full, although not quite so full as yesterday, back within its banks at a more ordinary level. Beneath the pewter skies, it appears gray, too, and yet, it is busy below the surface with its own bubble and flow, naiads and small insects and grasses swaying at the slightest provocation. By week’s end, there will be more water still, cascading down from the boiling clouds of a monsoonal sky.
It is spring: rebirth, renewal, reclamation, healing. And after a year of neither healing nor harmony, this year, the spirits have granted us medicine once again — the first medicine. Once again, we live with the water.
~ Aji
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