I just returned from Neversink, NY where I was honored to offer blessings for the lovely Walk for Water ritual political pilgrimage oranized by Queen Chrys Countryman.
Here is a description of the project in her own words:

Walk for Water
by Chrys Countryman

A new process for extracting natural gas from the earth, called fracking, makes the beautiful area in which we live attractive to mining companies. Unfortunately there appears to be serious consequences to the environment both above and below ground with this technology.

We are fortunate and grateful to live in a region of abundant water. To allow this enduring and essential resource to be squandered in exchange for short-term benefits is madness. The quality of life we leave behind is our legacy to future generations. Without clean water there is no quality of life. Therefore we are moved to put one foot in front of another to illustrate our concerns.

In response to this outrage, I have organized a group of women to walk approximately 90 miles from Neversink, NY to Salt Springs State Park in Susquehanna County PA, carrying clean fresh water from the Neversink Reservoir to the area of polluted ground water from fracking.

The participants come from all over New York and Pennsylvania. We are walking with our beautiful handmade pottery water vessel, the Amphora, from Sunday, April 17 until Saturday, April 23. We call our action “Walk About Water.” We are doing this in response to the threat to drinking water posed by mining for fossil fuels.

While the argument about mining rages on, we must do what we can to hold our communities together and to help make sound choices for the future as well as for today. We insist that the priorities of public health and quality of life have an appropriate place in decisions being made that will have an effect on everyone. We cannot be expected to sit still in the face of policies that demand we exchange our great-grandchildren’s future access to clean water for something as temporary as gas or money.

Our walk is intended to bring attention to the importance water has in all of our lives. We also seek to accentuate the commonality all people have when it comes down to basics, and to foster an understanding that we can, indeed, work together to honor that which we all need, love and cherish.

For the latest information about the walk and to view a program of events. please visit www.walkaboutwater.blogspot.com

We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to do this and for the support that has been so generously offered to us at every turn. Our opening event to send us off on the walk will be beautiful with music, wisdom and blessings from our dear Queen Mama Donna. All are welcome to attend. We will begin April 17 at 9:00 am on Aden Road in Neversink, NY about 1 mile from Route 55 where the water comes near the road.

We ask people who may rally with us to please carry pitchers and teapots, buckets, tin cups and watering cans as a powerful demonstration of our universal need for water.

This project was organized by a Queen and all the walkers are women of a certain age. It was a proud moment to watch them leave the blessing ceremony and start their walk. I watched them walk away until they were out of sight. They walked 18 miles yesterday and all through the day I thought of them. Where were they now? How were they holding up? What are they thinking?

Please join me in sending them positive energy and gratitude this week.

* Please send me your thoughts about power. Also stories of your own empowerment. When shared, these ideas and examples are extremely inspiring to others. Thanks.

***
The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to thequeenofmyself@aol.com.

CONSULT THE MIDLIFE MIDWIFE™
Queen Mama Donna offers upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity.

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