Freeing the sensuous waters of bottled tears
Act II of < Hydrocosmos, abyssal currents & tears > on the need to establish respectful and reciprocal relationships with bodies of water, in three acts: dance, cry, dive.
Act II
May we free the waters of bottled tears
Water covers ˜74% of the Earth’s surface and makes up 60% of the human body (˜75% when we are born, down to ˜46% as we age). These numbers are a reflection of how the human body of water is never separated from the other Earthly bodies of water. Before becoming tea, vegetable, tear, urine… the water that pours in and out of us was wave, river, botanical transpiration, cloud… it shapeshifts through human bodies, symbionts and technologies that have both polluted and filtered it, in geophysical, biological and technological cycles of eternal embodiment and metamorphosis.
In this swirl of transformation we become part of an immense hydrocosmos. Our isolated subjectivity is a violent and anthropocentric fallacy that we are late to compost!
But composting these inherited and prescribed worldviews of separation is arduous and painful work. It includes the destruction of pedestals of certainty that keep us in positions of control. It includes transforming all relationships that are not rooted in trust and consent. It includes accountability and reciprocity: towards other humans, towards other organisms, towards the lands and the waters that we, in the west, tend to believe inanimate and undeserving of such deep relationship.
The violences that we commit against bodies of water are many and of complex cause: bottling, waste, poisoning - by sewage, mercury, fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, cholera, plastic, fashion industry chemicals… the list is brutally long. The pain and resentment are excruciating.
The water in our bodies is not only physiological but cultural and sentient, through us, and when confronted with the extension of the profanation it urges to pour out. Crying is the first form of human expression upon leaving the amniotic maternal waters. It is our primordial reaction to separation from the body of water that nurtured our development. During our first years of life, our pains are communicated by our tears.
Adult tears interlace physiology, sensation, psychology and socio-cultural context. We, who grew within the patriarchal context that works laboriously on the list of violence against all bodies of water, are incentivized to erase tears from our multisensory vocabulary.
“So embarrassing! a man does not cry” and “big girls look ugly when they cry”, and those who don’t fit the binary are not even part of the patriarchal narrative. An internalized distortion is created and tears are bottled to reduce chances of “loss of control”, “infantilization” and “victimization”. We muzzle any chance of vulnerability, preventing it from becoming power towards deep and honest change. Thus, the infantilization and victimization we were avoiding are only aggravated: repressed emotions and hidden tears shapeshift into violent groups. And with immature and untranslatable emotions, political leaders enter the venues to debate insurmountable life losses without ever giving voice to the suffering. Those who cry for their lands, for their peoples and the Earth as a whole, are kept outside the spaces where urgent change is debated. Change which, according to the “non-emotional leaders” upholding the decrepit system, must be non-radical, monetized and profitable (for some at least).
So, change comes slowly and inequities increase. While 20% of the world’s population remains with no access to potable water, those who have consume increasingly more.
In Portugal, each inhabitant spend in average 190 liters of water daily. However, despite the excellent potability values of tap water, more than 50 liters of bottled water were consumed, per person, in 2021. Around 5.3 liters can be used solely to produce the plastic bottle, and 2.02 additional liters are needed for bottling 1 litter correctly: that’s 366 liters of “invisible water” added to each person’s bottled consumption…
These “simple” numbers mock the complexity of consumption reasons and the extension of the socio-ecological problems we face. They also ignore: the fossil fuels spent, the microplastics created, the fact that in countries like the USA bottled water is stolen from fragile ecosystems and native human populations, and more, and more, and more… even without fully understanding the extension of the issues, tears fall.
Tears as translators of the frustration that strangles the heart and threatens hope. Grieving tears that have been many other bodies of water and now fall as hydrocosmos of bacteria, fungi and virus that live in our eyes and who become part of the resistance to cynicism and apathy. Tears as maturing empathy, as tiredness that flows and dislodges so that we keep moving with all other bodies of water that sustain us.
Let us cry then, without looking away, to avoid reproducing in our bodies of water the oppressive violence we inflict on the other bodies of water. Let the tears burst through the dams that keep us locked in illusions of comfort. Let us cry not in self-infantilization, but as process of cartography and demand for integrity and change. Let us cry.
Questions for reflection:
What oppressed tears keep us separated from accountability towards ourselves & Earth?
Which violences come disguised as convenience?
What changes do bodies of water invite?
This article was originally written in a Portuguese version for Vento e Água - Ritmos da Terra magazine 47, 2023
Music to assist reflection: