Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote “Water, you are not necessary to life, you are life”. As I walked down from the top of the mountains, I meditated with these words in mind, on the incredible beauty of nature and on the priceless gift that Mother Earth generates in an endless harmonious cycle: Water. Life!
From the glacier to the stream, the torrent turns into a waterfall, rolls into rivers and lakes and then all the way to the fountain of the village where it flows generously. Hiking through this part of the French Southern Alps, I followed the making of water. I saw magic in the milky mineral water of the glacier turning into turquoise furious torrents running down in the valley and then to an icy and transparent water that I drunk from the tap. I felt truly in love and connected with Nature. I’m part of it, we humans are it, we all depend on it. How did we forget?
Glaciers nest in the mineral world. They melt away giving birth to water, that feeds torrents and creates lakes, home to frogs, insects and fish. Around the rivers, trees find a rich soil to grow strong into. Down in the village we quench our thirst at the fountain.
But I’m worried as many of us. What I saw up there, was barely a glacier. Yes it is summer and glaciers are lower and smaller at that season. But this one was almost gone. Our water is disappearing. Our life is threatened.
I’m not sure what we will see and experience in our lifetime but I know we need more of us contemplating and appreciating the true beauty of nature that surrounds us. Because what we love we want to protect, to let thrive and grow, and take great joy out of it.
