Seeing and hearing this giddy brook almost every day now, after having watched it dry up into a dusty rut this summer, produces mixed feelings.
Of course, there is the joyful relief that things are back to the old normal and that, compared to many other places, Maine continues to have a plentitude of fresh water. However, there also is the worry that the old normal may be a temporary thing to be remembered more than experienced, hence it’s paradoxically an abnormality in a world of increasing unpredictability, unpleasantness, and danger. Brooks like this remain dry in many parts of this country where drought has become almost a normality, if not a normality.
Fresh water is perhaps the most important resource on earth. To many Native Americans, it was sacred. The Lakota, who lived in the often-arid Great Plains, reportedly had (and still have) a succinct saying that has been transliterated as “Mní wičhóni.” It recognizes a reality that we sometimes forget: “Water is life.” (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November17, 2022.) Click on image to enlarge it.