dr. wendy pabich

EDITION #12

Hello, Subscriber First Name,

Never have I felt such a longing as the one that has drawn me back to the coast after a too-long (Covid-determined) absence, one that has felt like an unwanted estrangement, a severing of heart strings. Having recently landed in Santa Cruz, CA, for a spell, I am reveling in a sense of reconnection and knowing: the sea was one of my earliest loves.

The air is clean, cool, moist—a far cry from the thick, dry, wildfire smoke-filled air cloaking Idaho—and reminds me of the the sea air of my childhood. The visceral memories are strong—not for this particular place on land but for the sea and its sentiment. For the hours spent studying tide pools; catching and tasting the tangy, salty offerings of the ocean; swimming, boating, paddling, tumbling, and diving in, on, and around its edges; learning its many faces and temperaments.

I feel as if I am home; as if I can breathe once again.

What are the places that bring you the deepest sense of belonging, connection, centeredness? Which places do you love in a deep and unexplained way? Go there.

With water love,

Wendy

The Power of Love

I was inspired to write my book, Taking on Water, after understanding I had unwittingly used some 30,000 gallons of water in one month to irrigate my small yard (in a high-alpine desert). For me, this was a time of reckoning—my behavior was entirely incongruent with my deep connection to, my love for, the sea, the water. I first felt horrified, then compelled, to examine, own, and amend for my choices. This book was the result of that inquiry and this excerpt speaks to connection.

From Taking on Water:

He mumbled something about thirsty trees. I was writhing in distress, blanketed by the guilt of hypocrisy. What I couldn’t find the words, or perhaps the pride, to say out loud was, “I am the Water Deva, for Christ’s sake!”

In the Buddhist tradition, a water deva is a water spirit, connected to all liquids but felt most powerfully in association with streams, rivers, lakes, and the sea. Friends have long called me a “water goddess,” and truth be told, I’ve always felt like one. As a child, I spent untold hours perched on the granite outcrops of New England’s coastline, absorbing the nuances of the sea: the way the color of the water shifts toward gray with an oncoming storm; how flotsam gathers on eddy seams; the repetition in wave forms from the largest surges to the tiniest of ripples. I imagined myself a mermaid. The sea compelled me: my education was filled with logarithmic equations describing the arc of a beach form and first-order kinetics equations explaining microbial transformations of chemicals in water. Fittingly, I was born an Aquarian, and my nature shows all the characteristics—fiercely independent, individualistic, artistically and scientifically oriented.

By profession, I have felt compelled to be a Water Keeper. I have spent nearly a decade in the Wood River Valley of Idaho campaigning against water abuses, standing up for the larger interests of the community, and speaking for the fish, the damselflies, and the thirsty elk. I’ve become a public champion of the cause. I’ve conducted studies, taught at universities, and published papers. I’m asked to participate on boards. At times this work has put me on the opposite side of the table from developers, where I’ve spoken of declining aquifers, faulty water use estimates, and ill-gotten water rights. I’ve disclosed the ways in which models and calculations, and the assumptions on which they are based, are misguided or misleading. For this work, my experience and academic credentials—including a PhD in environmental engineering from MIT—have been questioned. Regardless, I am unable to sit by silently knowing what I know about the health of our waters and their diminishing reserves.

Yet there I was. We’d used almost 30,000 gallons of water in the past month of August irrigating both an organic garden and a plot of land that covers exactly 0.19 acre, not all of which is vegetated…

Where in your life does love compel action? Where would you like it to?

Taking on Water is available here.

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If you feel so inspired, I’d love to hear from you with feedback about the newsletter and what it brings up for you, your own water wisdom, and any other thoughts you’d like to share.