Renewal Take Home Resources

Water is interconnected just as we are with our community and friends from afar. Water is versatile, playful and can take many forms- just like we can. We use water as a living metaphor to represent a cleansing for the year ahead, and as a way to encounter the natural world. These resources focus on water play, cooling meditations, examination of Indigenous people’s right to clean water, and the healing our soul undergoes in the presence of any body of water.

 

Articles/Podcasts

 

Anne Koller -The Radical Healing Effects of Water

“Water serves as a transporter of energy throughout your body…carried by blood and bodily fluids, it is the means by which nourishment is circulated throughout our bodies…this flow of water enables us to live active lives,” wrote Emoto in his New York Times bestselling book The Hidden Messages in Water. This begs the question: What if we can utilize our thoughts and words for positive change while we are in water? Could we rewire our body and mind to default to the balance and peace it feels when in water?

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Spiritual Practices

 

Modified At Home Water Communion:

 

1. Discuss your favorite body of water. Think of memories, how it makes your family feel and discuss why you are choosing to visit it. Note that some family members may want to collect water from a different place. This can make for a fun day trip!

2. Plan a trip to this body of water and collect some water in a jar.

3. In your home, perhaps at your chalice, pour it into a bowl and explain why water is important. Perhaps write it down, and set intentions of renewal for September.

 

Playful Water Communion Activities/Play

 

25 Water Play Activities

 

Fun and easy water play activities will keep toddlers and preschoolers entertained, learning and engaged for hours at home or in the classroom. Link available here.

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Music & Tonal Water Play:

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Use the ideas from the “Water Play and Music Exploration Video”:

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Bubble Play:

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Script for bubble play:

Do you know what this is?

It’s a straw. We blow air through it.

When we blow air through it into soapy water, we make bubbles.

We need some water and soap in this bowl. (Put a little soap in the water and demonstrate blowing bubbles.)

See the water swirl in the bowl?

Water is important to us Unitarian Universalists because we offer a special Water Ritual at the beginning of the year.

It’s called Water Communion or Water Service.

We use water to remind us that we are all connected, we are all friends, just like water is connected by rain, streams, ponds, rivers, lakes, and oceans.

This connection to our church friends renews our spirits and fills us with happiness. We can’t get together like we used to, but we can still be close in our spirits.

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Meditations/ Rooted Practices 

 

Healing Water Meditation Script:

 

1. Take a deep breath and imagine you are water.

2. Close your eyes and feel your legs and arms and head turn into water.

3. You are floating with all the water in a pond. [CONSIDER INVITING THE CHILDREN TO LIE BACK]

4. You ripple, you wave, you swirl... Can you move your arms to ripple, to wave, to swirl? Can you spread out and be water? [Give time for children to move.]

5. Feel it all around you. Do you feel the freedom of floating? Allow yourself to feel as though you are rocking back and forth peacefully.

6. Now, slowly turn your arms into arms, your legs into legs, and your head into your head.

7. Remember how it felt to be water. And let’s be sure to take that peacefulness with us into the day ahead.

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Sleep Meditation for Kids: Underwater Sleep Dome 

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Music/Videos/Stories

 

Visit the Kids Page:

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Additional Resources: 

 

Playlist:

 

Kelowna Unitarians Water Communion Playlist:

Open on Spotify

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Social Justice in Canada:

 

Protecting/Advocating for Protection of Indigenous People’s Water World Water Day: Indigenous Canadian teen addresses UN General Assembly

 

Water is Spirit Teaching Materials:

 

Operation Water Spirit (OWS) is a collection of thematic units and lesson plans which will reinforce Aboriginal culture and perspectives regarding water for Aboriginal students while at the same time provide an Aboriginal perspective to non-Aboriginal students about water issues. OWS invites teachers to encourage classroom discussions to enable students to gain a closer understanding of Aboriginal issues and perspectives surrounding drinking water.

K-2 Lesson 5: Water Is Important

 

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Thinking Pieces/Engaging Conversations

 

• How is “summer renewal” different from “fall renewal” for you? How is the wonder of summer different from the wonder of fall?

• Invite the children to find something to share with the family that they love the most about nature. Make a point, in the next two weeks, to give each member an opportunity to intentionally be renewed by that space in nature.

 

Connect Beyond the Home:

 

Healthy Souls Cooking Event: Cooking With What Mother Nature Gave us This Week!

 

Water is essential in growing our food to sustain us! We achieve a sense of renewal each time we nourish ourselves from the earth, everything is interconnected!

 

Prepare a specialty dish using garden or farmer’s market produce. What makes this fun during the fall is that different types of food are ready at different times, so every week one or two types of vegetables are the star of the show. And overflow our garden baskets! So this is a great way to help each other figure out what to do with all of the turnips and zucchini from this week!

 

Theme connection: For so many of us, cultivating our gardens is the primary way we renew our spirits. To celebrate that we are inviting this family to share their special recipe from their garden.

 

Share your recipe video or picture with Amanda at cypckelownaunitarian@gmail.com. We can post it onto our instagram and facebook :)