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#CollectiveCare 🌊 What can water teach us about Collective Care?
- Manushya Foundation
- Apr 19
- 3 min read
Though we might call it different things, ‘new year’ and ‘water festival’ celebrations are shared by our global East, South and Southeast Asian community, united in our traditions, no matter where we are. Additionally, we are also united by the centrality of water to our rituals, our regard for water as a symbol for new beginnings, and how its properties might inspire us as we begin a new cycle.
Now more than ever, as our current society becomes increasingly detached from our environment, perhaps it is time to take more inspiration from the wisest teachers of life - the Earth, and its Indigenous tenants. However you choose to celebrate this season, let’s all take some time, as we ease into this new year, to think about how we could learn from water to influence our collective care practices.
Water is always shapeshifting: Water constantly takes on different forms as it interacts with its surroundings, and vice versa. Not only this - it also encourages the shapeshifting of other earthly bodies, such as the rocks it erodes, and the valleys it shapes. From this, we might learn from water to be more flexible, open-minded, and adaptable, whenever we can be. Water also reminds us that as we shapeshift, others do as well. Our actions, as well as our mere existence, have the power to affect others, even when we do not realize it. We could therefore also learn from this to be more kind to ourselves, and others, as we all collectively evolve through life together.
Water moves in waves: A body of water might be able to stay still when there is serenity and equilibrium in the whole body. But in most cases, bodies of water are constantly moving in waves, compelled into movement by momentum from the elements, weather, and celestial bodies. This could serve as a profound metaphor for our collective wellbeing, and for our movements. In times of relative ‘stability,’ it is easier for the collective to be still and settled. In the same way, in times of ‘chaos,’ the whole collective is affected - unrest anywhere means unrest everywhere, and we all must move accordingly. Like waves, our lives are interdependent, and most powerful when there is momentum behind us.
Water heals, grows, and replenishes: These traits of water can inspire us to embrace and make peace with the transformative times we are living through.
It is no secret that existing structures around us are crumbling (in some ways assisted by the environment, that is simply responding to the disrespect that civilization has treated it with). Still, it is never too late to harness the qualities of water that encourage healing, growing, and replenishing, as we sustain all the precious life we currently find around us, and make room for even more life in the future.
Water transcends barriers: Even when the process can be slow (glacial, even), nothing will stop water from returning to its source. Water will always eventually transcend all barriers in its way, be it borders, continents, distance, enclosed spaces, or state of matter. Water is free.
Our civilization is currently undergoing a time of high anxiety, where systems of control (ruled by fear of the Unknown and the Other) are becoming increasingly conservative, divisive, and restrictive of our collective freedoms. Despite this, let’s not forget that we have the power to transcend all barriers, and that we all deserve freedom - to move, connect, thrive, and simply exist. Even if it will take patience, time, resistance, resilience, and perhaps even generations, we, like water, have the collective power to overcome all obstacles in our path.
We wish an auspicious pi mai, thingyan, songkran, sangkran, or otherwise, to all who celebrate. Let us continue to respect the gift of water, honor the wisdom of our earth, and remember the life forces that connect all of us.
#WeAreManushyan ♾️ Equal Human Beings