The Healing Power of Water

By Dr. Will Tuttle

One of our most valuable inner resources is intuition: the internal guidance system that assists us to live our unique life with authenticity and meaning. Our intuition helps us make connections, and is thus one of the main driving forces in urging us to move toward vegan living, as well as to become more joyful, creative, and effective in our lives.

During our upcoming Healing Our World retreat and World Peace Diet facilitator training October 18-20 in northern California, we’ll be sharing and exploring some of the ways we can cultivate and develop our intuition. One of the seven keys I’ve found is to do our best to connect with nature, every day if possible.

Walking, camping, swimming, gardening, sunbathing, “earthing,” (being barefoot), star-gazing, bird-watching: there are many ways we can explore. One of my favorites is swimming, especially in cold water. I find cold, clean water to be not just invigorating, but healing and spiritually uplifting as well.

On this lecture tour, we flew into Fargo from San Francisco and I feel fortunate that we’ve been able to swim in lakes virtually every afternoon. Minneapolis and Madison are both blessed to have swimming lakes, and lovely and mighty Lake Michigan, larger than Switzerland, is just a few feet away as I write this in Traverse City, after four days of daily swims traveling to Evanston, South Bend, Grand Rapids, and here.

Words fail to convey the delicious, healing, and positively transformational effect of immersing completely into lakes, streams, rivers, and oceans, especially if they are clean and alive. With practice, anything is possible, and I’ve found that awareness of the immense benefits of cold water make it relatively easy to overcome the seemingly instinctual fears and the initial shock, and to begin to relish the experience.

For the past thirty years, I’ve done my best to immerse and connect with living water, wherever we happen to be in the world, so that means most of the states and provinces of North America, as well as many places in South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Australia. Now that—after 18 years traveling in an RV—we have a house in northern California, we have installed an outside shower, so between that and our nearby lake, we have not used our inside shower in five years. For Madeleine and me, there’s nothing like coming home at night and taking a cold shower under the stars before heading to bed!

Water purifies and cleanses our energy field. All of us are bombarded with EMF fields, and deal with the stresses of modern living. I’ve found that several things happen when immersing, for example, into the Danube or Deschutes River, or the Mediterranean Sea, or Lake Geneva, or Walden Pond, or a mountain lake or stream, or a shower under the trees and stars.

Physically, it seems that every cell is rejuvenated and starts rejoicing. Cells cell-ebrate in water, their essence. Mentally, the mind relaxes and focuses in a natural meditative state. Emotionally, a deep sense of joy and gratitude fills the heart. Spiritually, I feel I connect with not only a universal presence, but also with the presence of the locale where I am.

Before delivering a lecture here in Traverse City this evening, for example, Madeleine and I will swim in the lake to deepen our connection with all the people here—both the human people and the animal people—and with the unique energy and inspiration in this area, and re-dedicate ourselves to being part of the healing of our world. The water in an area seems to have within it essential information about that area that we can tune into. Also, as we travel, we find enormous healing power in nature and in water. If I feel a little cold coming on, a sure way to eliminate it is a swim in a cold lake or stream!

In the final analysis, we will only protect what we love, and we will only love what we experience and understand. By getting outside and into nature and walking, jogging, swimming, sleeping close to the Earth, and contemplating the natural sounds, aromas, designs, patterns, colors, and the textures of wind and water, our intuition is nourished and awakened, and we drink of living presences that inspire us to love, protect, and help heal our world and all our fellow passengers on this abundant Earth.

By cultivating a love of water and swimming, I have been profoundly sensitized to the devastating impact of animal agriculture on beloved and vulnerable rivers, lakes, and oceans, as well as on forests, prairies, and mountains. For me, veganism is an expression of love and caring for all life that is celebrating on this Earth, and the more we can understand and appreciate nature, beyond the conceptual prisons imposed by our upbringing in a herding culture, the more joyfully and effectively we can live our lives and contribute to the healing of our world.

Though I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes, I’m profoundly grateful for several things I’ve gotten right, including vegan living, a love of water and nature, and the importance of self-inquiry, meditation, and intuition. Please, if you can, join us October 18-20 in beautiful west Marin to share more and learn together in our Healing Our World training and retreat.

Thanks for saying yes to life!