What ‘Water is Life’ Really Means

As our featured storyteller during a Mending the Arc session, Norma Wong (Norma Ryuko Kawelokū Wong Roshi) told a story about water.

We have all heard the words “water is life.” A universal truth — and a refrain that has echoed through pipeline protests, climate actions, and continues to ring true as the climate crisis unfolds.

But Norma reminded us that these words are also a reminder about stewardship.

Water is life. Life is water. He ola ka wai, he wai ke ola.

We cannot say that water is life without holding the responsibility that comes with it — namely, being a steward of a place where water flows and sustains life. By affirming that water is life, we also affirm our responsibility to water, and to place — and the people and beings of that place.

It is a call to reflect on our responsibility toward water. And to consider the unfolding story of water itself.

Water has a story, and also a spirit. The water that sustains us today has journeyed for years to reach us. And as Chenoa Egawa, a member of the Lummi tribe and a ceremonial leader, storyteller, artist, and environmental activist said, “Water holds memories since time began and has a living spirit just like we do.”

The drops of water in the glass beside us are part of an elaborate and sacred system the earth holds. Water is life…for the world. For all beings.

And pausing to consider the wisdom in water, allows us to be reminded of the great arc of generations — 7 generations in the past, and 7 generations into the future — that have also been (and will be) sustained by this very water. The water we drink today carries history, sustains our future, and makes the present possible.

Today, we are reflecting on the care that water asks of us. For each other, for the land, for the water, and all the life it sustains.

Water is life. Life is water.

He ola ka wai, he wai ke ola.

Below is Norma’s full water story; the full text of her story follows.

Video text:

Life is water.

Water is life. Life is water. Within that, you have this notion of how you would need to be…

There is the part of life living itself as in water. Not as in a metaphor, but to take on all the characteristics of water. But it’s also a stewardship reminder. And it’s a reminder of who the steward is.

So, if you say these things, if you say, He ola ka wai, he wai ke ola, then you need to understand you cannot say that without being the steward of a place who holds the responsibility that without water, there is no life.

And if that is the case, if without water there is no life, then what is your responsibility towards that water?

How you care for it, how you conserve it, what do you watch for, what is the unfolding story of the water itself?

In Hawaii, where we get our drinking water, is mostly from the aquifers that lie deep within the land itself. And it is a lens of water that sits within fungible rock. That fungible rock is porous rock, and that water, fresh water, sits there in that porous rock.

And beneath that lens of fresh water, there is the water of the ocean itself, that has also permeated the fungible rock. And that salt water and fresh water are different densities. And because they’re different densities, the fresh water sits on top of the salt water. But if you take too much of that water, then what will happen is that the salt water will invade the fresh water, and they will come into a being together. It will become brackish. And that brackish will kill life. It will kill life.

And so to preserve that amount of lens of the fresh water, requires stewardship, it requires care. It took a long time for that water to become drinkable. From the time that the rain falls in the mountains, in places that I live in, which is very very close to the mountain.

The street that I am on is called Papali Place. Papali means “the small cliff that is among the cliffs.” And so it would be in a place like where I live, that water would fall almost all year long. And as every drop of that water makes its way down, it makes its way down into the soil, and the water that is on the land that stays on the land makes its way down to the ocean. But if it has the fortune of coming into the land itself, it will take 27 years for that drop of water to make its way down to the place that we call the aquifer. That body of water that then becomes available for us to store and to cleanse and to drink.

The water itself has a journey. It has traveled a long way to be in connection with us again, as beings of the land. And we honor that. We pause for that. We understand our relationship to that.

Our very survival dependent on whether or not a drop of rain that falls today, makes its way to be drunk by someone, 27 years hence. The longest of journeys.