A PILGRIMAGE TO THE WORLD'S 'SACRED WATERS':
Photographs by John Stanmeyer...A National Geographic Exhibit

"When you compare various faiths around the world, Stanmeyer says, it quickly becomes apparent that the uses of water in religion are nearly universal and similar across cultures.

"Spiritually, we seem to have evolved for millenniums to have a dire need for having a very meaningful, layered spiritual connection with water...Needing it as much as we need it in many ways as consumption..."

www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/03/a-pilgrimage-to-the-worlds-sacred-waters.h tml

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/04/sacred-water/stanmeyer-photography


"If I were called in / To construct a religion / I should make use of water, wrote the English poet Philip Larkin in 1954—and most religions do.

Waters, religious historian Mircea Eliade explained in the 1950s, are “spring and origin, the reservoir of all the possibilities of existence; they precede every form and support every creation.”

So it has been since human history began and, by legend, before. The world, Genesis says, was brought to life by a God who created a “firmament in the midst of the waters.”

Babylonians believed in a world made from a commingling of fresh and salt water.
Pima Indians have said Mother Earth was impregnated by a drop of water.
The cataclysmic flood that destroys a civilization is also an aqueous archetype and part of Hebrew, Greek, and Aztec cultures.

The body thirsts. So does the spirit. “I must live near a lake,” wrote Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who waded into the depths of the psyche and equated water with the unconscious.

“Without water, I thought, nobody could live at all.”

From our worldly entrance in a burst of amniotic fluid to the ritual washing of the dead (taharah in Judaism; ghusl al-mayyit in Islam), water flows through our lives, scribing a line between sacred and profane, life and death. We are doused, dunked, dipped, sprinkled—and blessings flow, deep and wide as the River Jordan of Scripture, wondrous as the spring at Lourdes, cathartic as tears."
By Cathy Newman

Although not a religious person, I find myself more grounded and spiritual whenever I'm near any body of water. Could this be a subconscious desire to connect with the source from whence we came? After all, we did spend 9 months floating around before we entered this dimension.

ADD A BLUE HOLE: Green Grotto Lake & Cave with its Penetrating Ficus Tree Roots

www.flickr.com/photos/maitri/2309494396/in/set-72157604053402853/

• Formed of coastal limestone, these caves were a haven for runaway slaves and pirates.

• This underground maze located between Ocho Rios and Montego Bay features many intriguing rock formations, stalactites, and stalagmites, which are lighted by sun pouring in through holes in the ceiling.

• Arawak natives found shelter in the Green Grotto Caves before the island was discovered by Columbus, and these skilled artisans left paintings on the walls

• The Green Grotto Cave is 5,003 feet (1,525 meters) long and 39 feet (12 meters) deep. No sunlight reaches the subterranean lake at the bottom, and the creatures that live in the water are blind.

• ... the cavern, which was createdby water containing carbon dioxide dissolving the island's limestone base. A boat takes visitors out onto eerie Grotto Lake at the bottom of the complex labyrinth, and stalagmites that formed long ago can be seen below the water's surface.

• The James Bond movie Live and Let Die was filmed here.
Lynne Sullivan (Away Travel Expert)

JAMAICAN BLUE HOLES & HEALING WATERS...Add your favourites & try to remember some of these environments "pre-commercialization"

www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=jamaica+blue+holes+photos&oe=UTF-8& um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=ezrpS9jeBYGKlwfp_oTxCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&c t=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQsAQwAA

GUTS RIVER
www.travelblog.org/Photos/329112

ROARING RIVER
www.explorerjamaica.com/roaring-river-tour.htm

YS FALLS
www.flickr.com/photos/bonitajamaica/sets/72157603489473558/

REACH FALLS
www.traveladventures.org/continents/southamerica/reach-falls06.shtml

www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090615/business/business2.html

SOMERSET FALLS
www.somersetfallsjamaica.com/#

SULPHUR RIVER (BATH: HOT MINERAL SPRING/ FOUNTAIN)
www.jamlink.com/188-bath-fountain.html