Fire Tribe Gathering

Water Service

by Andrew Watermountain

I got my start in this community carrying water around more or less constantly by the fireside, and since then I seem to have graduated (gradually) to drumming and singing and dancing.  I got my name from doing water service, and many have been the time when I was thanked in daylight by a face that was thirsty under moonlight. Last year I hardly carried water at all, but I noticed that many were doing it, and I was moved by your service, and I thank you.

Praxis and Doxos

I'm a classicist by training, so for me water service is about two-thirds praxis or "practice" and one-third doxos or "praise." Both of these are Greek words, and they come out of the classical Greek experience (for praxis) and Orthodox Christianity (for doxos).  I think of these as being the practical issues on the one hand, and theoretical issues on the other.

There are right and wrong ways to carry water, and I've done both. It may be I've ruined your trance experience at the fire; if so, my humble apologies.  It may be I've boosted your experience; if so, it was your doing, or the water, and not mine.

Praxis

1. Offer water. You are trusted to provide clean water, nothing more and nothing less. Live up to that trust. Someone once gave me 'magic powder' to put in the water. I had no idea what it was. I didn't add it, and didn't let him add it, either. I once saw someone drink what he thought was water, but he spit out vodka.
   
   
2. Water can ruin drum heads. When passing water to drummers, pass the water to the side of a drum, not directly over the middle. Do it even if the drum has an artificial head; it's good practice.
   
   
3. Use local water when possible. Bottled water is environmentally unfriendly, because of transport costs and bottling. Bottled water is economically unfriendly, because it makes a luxury of a necessity.
   
   
4. Don't try to prettify the bottles. Glitter gets unstuck, and winds up in the water. Ribbons get in the way of drinking mouths. Water eventually wears away even Sharpie marker over the course of the night.
   
   
5. Offer the drinking vessel with as much support as needed. Some drummers drink without handling the container itself; they want you to pour (carefully). Some want to take the whole bottle, drink, and hand it back. Some want to tilt the container, but want you to keep hold. Follow the drinker's lead.
   
   
6. Communicate with the Fire Tenders. They see as many around the fire circle as you do. You're sharing responsibility with them for people's safety. When 2/3-3/4 of your container is empty, scatter remaining water immediately around the fire. This cools the ground around the fire, dampens sparks and helps contain the fire, and gets rid of the worst backwash in the container. The larger the fire, and drier the weather, the more urgently this is usually needed.
   
   [Editor’s note: at Fire Tribe Hawaii’s Gatherings, the convention is to avoid contacting the water bottle directly with one's mouth – to eliminate backwash and minimize the risk of sharing microorganisms.]
   
   
7. Fire and water don't always mix. Ice cold water should not be applied to severe burns: it compromises the burn and the victim's temperature status. Know where there's a sterile blanket to roll a burned person in, instead. Ideally, leave burns to professionals, particularly serious burns.
   
   
8. Remember to drink some, yourself. Keep hydrated and set a good example. If you haven't passed water in more than three hours, you're dehydrated. If your urine isn't clear, you're dehydrated.

Doxos

Water is elemental. Its presence in the circle is just as important as singing or dancing or drumming. It's fluid, not stable nor static – and it can be as roaring and as powerful as a fire.  If water can circulate, rather than being confined to a specific location, it should be allowed to circulate.  At the same time, it is advisable for many to do water service, rather than just one (as a friend reminded me, it's easy for one person to get wrapped up in "This is my service" and get a little obsessive about the task. Water does that to me, anyway).  Water is multi-faceted, and many faces bearing the water allow water to be myriad and manifold.

As suggested in the movie, What The Bleep Do We Know?, it may be possible to shift the qualitative energy of water. Dr. Emotu's work suggests that you can project ideas like "love" or "truth" or "beauty" or "generosity" at water to change its crystalline character.  Drinking water charged in this way may have positive effects.

Refilling water containers is unavoidable.  Make a virtue out of the inconvenience, and use the walk from the fill-up point to charge and prepare the water for the circle.  You can do this by saying words of blessing over the container as you fill it, by carrying the containers through the circle's gate with reverence or ceremony (I usually rang the bell on the SpiritFire gate, for example), and by saluting the circle's Water Altar during your first passage around the circle.  These activities may not change the water itself so much as change your consciousness in how you serve it to others.

After encountering Magnus and Spinner McBride's description of the fire circle as alchemy, I thought, "maybe water functions in the circle as a rotating lens or parabolic mirror in an alchemical operation."  By this, I mean that it acts as a focus for the energy of the participants, and as it rotates around the fire it collects good will, good vibes, good energy, and reflects that energy back to the participants. People are drinking all that yumminess in.

It acts like the 'small dots' in the yin-yang symbol: a tiny piece of the complementary force intermingled with the principal force. It acts as a cooling presence, which helps lend endurance both to the fire and the participants, so that the circle's energy can sustain itself against the fire at the center.

There is enormous gratitude from those to whom you bring water.  The water bearer receives tremendous words of blessing, gratitude, bows, hugs, and waves of kindness, healing, and good feeling.  It can be really addictive to be on the receiving end of all that delicious good will, so remember to let others carry water too, and experience those feelings (I didn't get that until I got the chance to receive water, instead of always offering it – it's not right for one person to hijack all that energy, and I'm sorry I didn't let go earlier).

I hope that you will find ways to bring each other water. In my opinion, water service belongs in the circle, and should not be consigned to a place on the edge.

I hope that these thoughts will be of use to those of you who choose to do some water service this year.

May your wells be full and your cellar dry,

Andrew Watermountain

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