Water Wedding
pledging love to the wetness of life
I haven’t been able to find the words lately, or space enough for the words to find me. That old tension between doing and being. For me at least, writing needs enough stillness for the fat of reflection to rise to the surface, where I might collect it and have something to share with you.
Making things takes so much time and focus, more than can ever be guessed at. It takes a different mind too, the haptic one and spacial sense. Fingers like octopus tentacles, each with their own brain. Thinking without words.
The past month I've been embroidering a poem at a pace of one word an hour, sewing performance ritual costumes, making a film and installation and a fountain of sigils together with Patrick Dallard. I missed both the new moon and full moon letter to you, so I offer this piece for the whole lunar cycle.
I share with you here the vows I wrote for Water Wedding, the first of which was held with four brides on Monday’s full moon. There will be four more weddings, on the 11 June, 10 July, 9 August, 7 September at Södertälje konsthall. Everyone is welcome to become a bride to water, no matter their gender identity. If you live locally and wish to wed water here is the event info, you are welcome to contact me for bookings.
Following the Water Wedding vows, you’ll find some images from the performance ritual and of Patrick and my work in the exhibition Geographical Transmittals that opened at Södertälje konsthall on Saturday, also with wonderful works by Caretto/Spagna, Apparatus 22 & aghili/karlsson.
Finally I share with you news of a surprising collaboration that has grown from the Substackian hyphae. Lay it on the Line: where curiosity meets candour, is a monthly weave of words from Stacy Boone, Yasmin Chopin, Donna Fisher, Bee Lilyjones, Amanda C. Sandos, Julie Snider and myself.
We will be publishing our first piece on June 1st, of which I’ve had the pleasure of writing the invitational piece and somewhat curating, though the flow of our words made this work quite effortless. You can subscribe to any (or all!) participating writers, each of us will publish the complete exchange so you can choose your entry point into our collective exploration of art, ecology, philosophy and place.
Now to the Water Wedding. But first, let me set the scene with cherry blossom confetti falling in the warm spring sun. A courtyard of a contemporary art space, in the middle of a living historical museum. There is a wooden boat full of water, petals floating. Rising from the boat is a configuration of copper sigils, spouting water as a fountain. Four brides in blue silk veils with bell towers stand full of love and promise before the water and two artists in green, conduct the slow walk that has brought us here and the ceremony that follows.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today under this cherry tree, by this boat,
to weave our love and awareness of water back together again
to join together these brides and water, in sacred union.
More water than not we are 3.8 billion years old what do you remember? lake body bubbling from the same ancient source living countless lives and loves through countless beings through time through clouds through oceans and rivers evaporating through leaves making rain seeping through the cracks in the pavement down for the deep fill to the dreaming water underground from which we drink Water is life, a living medium, deserving of our reverence rich with memories and trace elements water tells a story much greater that our individual and human selves. Water weaves us into the web of all life, of shared life with vast communities of trees, plants, animals, clouds and places everywhere on earth. In this way, water and wife are in constant companionship in the flow of life in times of prosperity as well as in times of adversity. This wedding, uniting water with an individual, as inseparable as they may be is a significant moment, a dissolving of heart, body, mind and spirit into a celebration of liquid love. This is a wedding like no other. The history of marriage is a legal and colonising affair, claiming dominion over another, joining property and possession an attempt to bind or fix a relationship that can only ever be fluid, because of water water refuses to be fixed, evaporates when held, sublimates when frozen and as vapour will fall. In wedding of water, there is no claim or possession your body's water will tomorrow be another's and yesterday was not yet yours this dance with water is 'till death do us part'. This is a wedding that never ends that will continue to resonate every time you drink, swim, flush and wash as you see though the film of water on your eyes, touch through the film of water on your skin, taste, hear and sense through the medium of water. This is a vow to enter into a relation of awareness with water. Traditionally veils are associated with modesty, but let these veils instead remind you of all the water around you as the sigils of the fountain, Sorceress, signify wishes for the four states of water (west - liquid) fountain of life flowing through all living beings (south - solid) crystalising wonder expanding moments and matter (north - gas) sublimating mind into sky (east - the fourth state) honouring mystery. We now invite you, one by one, to step into the boat and to make your offerings to water... (each bride steps into the fountain to make their offering and for the following vow) Before these witnesses, do you (...bride’s name...) take Water, to love and to cherish, until death do you part? (Yes) Do you, Water, take (...bride’s name...) to be your wife, to love and to cherish, until death do you part? (fountain responds) (after each bride has made their offering and vow, all brides together – glasses in hand) You have each pledged to water your lifelong commitment, your love and devotion in sacred union. In the name of the living earth, the full moon and all sentient beings, I now pronounce you water and wife. You may now imbibe your bride. (all drink)
So, dear reader or listener, would you consider wedding water?
And if so, why or why not?
Do post a comment if you are inspired to conduct your own elemental wedding!
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Inspiring, Julia. I have been musing on elemental connections between water and light--both life giving and life-sustaining. Breathing us in to life on this planet and, when our bodies can bear no more, spiriting us away.
Even so, light and water are everywhere in the cosmos, we are learning, sometimes not in ways we can detect with the human eye, so we rely on tools like the James Webb Space Telescope that can refract spectral light our eyes are not designed to see in ways we can transform it into seeing for our eyes.
And apparently there is a water spectrum these space probes are designed to detect as well-- another light refraction. It truly is a miracle.
Thanks you for showing us new ways of playing with these ideas and honoring life and the Source of Life!
Julia, your dedication to water, to the elemental truth of water, to our watery selves—so gorgeous! Thank you for sharing your photos, words, and ethics with us. Water is the most precious, yet taken-for-granted, resource we share.