Women and water — symbols of birth and rebirth. Life first came from water via women; the Greek goddess Aphrodite rose from the sea foam.
Worldwide, women get the water still. Susan Murcott, a Boston-based engineering consultant and a lecturer at MIT believes that water engineering in poor countries is an important tool of liberating women in the developing world. Her initiative Safe Water for 1 Billion People is a leader in global water and sanitation projects.
In 1980 the first Water Ritual was held in East Lansing, Michigan, organized by activist Carolyn McDade and now-deceased Lucile Schuck Longview. Members of the Women and Religion Continental Convocation of the Unitarian Universalists, Carolyn and Lucile organized the Water Ritual “as a way for women who lived far apart to connect the work each was doing locally to the whole”.
Women’s connection to water is negated and condemned by social conservatives as a symbol of debauchery and siren-led sensuality that threatens patriarchal civilizations. At Anne of Carversville, we hold hands around the symbolism of women and water as the source of communion and human redemption.