Water plays many roles. I have been fortunate to both observe and participate in a number of them.
Thirty years ago, while pursuing book projects in India, I visited Bodhgaya and Varanasi. I arrived in Bodhgaya on the first day of an autumn thanksgiving festival (Dala Chett). Women stood in the Niranjana River praying to the setting and, the next morning, to the rising sun. Prayers of thanksgiving for the bountiful harvest and for the health of their families. Varanasi is an ancient pilgrimage destination. Each morning devotees stand in the Ganges River reciting their prayers. Villagers from Chandrabhaga, on the Bay of Bengal, fishing. In Xizhou (Yunnan,China), women transplanting rice and men fishing. Egyptian women sailing across the Nile to their village opposite Luxor. All possess an important connection with water.
In central Paris, the whimsical Stravinsky Fountain (1983) was designed by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle to animate the area next to the dour Pompidou Centre. Using Pierre Boulez’s suggestion of Stravinsky’s work as the theme for the fountain, they created 16 sculptures which move and spray water. The fountain has the charm of an 18th C mechanical music box. It is a source of entertainment.
In autumn, it is a joy to tramp through the woods and marvel at the range of colors floating on the water. Water becomes a canvas. Constable painted clouds over Hampstead Heath; I photographed clouds in the western sky off my third floor deck.
Winter is the time to get more intimate with water—snow, ice, icicles, and frost. All these patterns, pictures are unique and short lived.
Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water (Albert Szent-Gyorgyi).