Nga Zhichige Nibi Onj – I do it for the water
G’giiwemin – We are all going home
The Journey Home
Late in September, in the All Nations Grand River Water Walk, led by Mary Anne Caibaiosai, an Anishinaabe Elder, Bear Clan of unceded territory – Wiikwemkoong, Manitoulin Island, we walked Nibi (water) home from the mouth to her source over 6 days and almost 300km. As we walked her home, ‘we’ also returned home in some way–to our true nature, to our essential teachings, to our ancestral roots and home to our first mother-Earth- who gives us life and sustains us. This may seem obvious and simple. Yet, as we walk, we embody this truth and for me over the last 8years, it has offered me a paradigm shift.
These Anishinaabemowin statements and words above guided the way of our walking, the intention of our spirits as we walked. “I do it for the water.” This walk isn’t about me. It’s not about my emotional stuff that needs healing. It’s not about what makes me comfortable and happy. It’s not about my identity. We walk for the water, for her healing. We focus on her. This ceremony is about the spirit of water and what she needs for her spirit to be restored, clean and pure.
Each time I received the pail, I renewed my commitment and intention to walk each step in peace. To have peace in my mind, my hands, my eyes, my feet. Each time I gave the pail to the next woman to carry Nibi forward, I watched and prayed for that peace to be ever present. For 10 hours a day, we focused on the water, setting aside our egos. For me this is like Reiki meditation and healing. You set aside ego and you surrender to Spirit, to Universal Love and Healing Light (Reiki) to do what is needed for harmony and balance. The comfort of your ego is not the focus.
When our feet get tired, or a truck passes by in an intentionally disruptive way, or when rush hour traffic moves at speeds and volumes that often overwhelms the water, we reach for our inner calm and steady feet and hands. We return to our intentions and our prayers in a joyful way….I do it for the water. We are carrying her home.
The paradigm shift came as an invitation to a different orientation in life. It’s an orientation towards a relationship with water and the First Nations people who are the first stewards of this water and land that starts with respect, truth, humility, and kindness. When I start with the orientation that water must flow–that’s its nature–then I begin with ‘relationship.’ It’s not about just me. It’s about the relationship….what is healthy, symbiotic and life-giving. We have been trained to think and orient towards ‘me, I, myself.’ Of course, the ‘I, me, myself’ is important. Of course, we need to fulfill the true needs and purpose of the individual life.
And yet, there is ‘G’giiwemin–we are all going home’ that focused our minds and spirits as we walked. I was reminded there is equally a communal, a collective ‘we’ embedded in the very fabric of the water walk ceremony. The ‘we’ implies that relationship exists. We set aside our egos so that the good of the water, the good of the whole, the harmony and balance of the community can be nourished. This orientation of the good of the whole is being threatened by modern practices of greed and the technology of algorithms. Having the spiritual and emotional capacity to set aside ego to listen for and perceive where the good for the whole lies, requires healthy minds and hearts.
G’giiwemin taught me that returning home to source, like the water did, invites us to let go of all that isn’t needed nor necessary. Travelling from the mouth to the headwaters is a journey of going from a river with a width of approximately 200 feet to a stream.. As it travels through Dunneville, just before the final exit into Lake Erie, it measures about 500m to 1km in the upper expansion. Now compare this to the headwaters northeast of Dundalk where it’s mostly a shallow stream measuring 1-2metres in width.
As I carried Nibi (water) closer home, bringing her back to her source, I felt the letting go. It is like our spiritual journeys–the closer to Source we are, the deeper and the more complete is the letting go. Spirit likes simplicity and lightness of being. It invites us to release the weight, the burdens, the stuff that no longer serves us. .
This year I forgot my knapsack. So most days, I carried my waterbottle, a couple of things in my pocket and that was it. I carried only the essentials rather than all the things I thought I could or might need walking all day as I had years past. We really don’t need everything the corporate world, our egos and society tells us we need to have and carry. The walk showed me that walking in peace is to walk lightly and gently in right relationship with water, with our first mother, and with the communities that share these lands and waters, including and especially with nations of the Haudenosaunnee, the Anishinaabe and the Attawandaron peoples.
As we walked, we honoured the late Shirley Williams, an Anishinaabe Elder, eagle clan, knowledge and language keeper, a pioneer water walker who died earlier in 2026. We felt her and the late Josephine Mandamin who was the first Anishinaabekwe water walker present to us as ancestors who protected us, supported us, held us in love and care, and guided us in the truth of what this ceremony is meant to do. We deeply felt the presence and the miracle of the ancestors showing up to guide and protect us, to support us and show us their love.
In many land based cultures around the world, ancestors are honoured, respected and offered gifts of gratitude for their protection and presence for those who remain. This walk has helped me connect with and honour my own blood ancestors, calling upon them for their support in my life daily. I also extend this ancestral-lineage support to my Reiki practice (spiritual practice) inviting the spiritual lineage of support, care and wise guidance that flows through the traditional Japanese Reiki Masters that shaped the practice I enjoy today (and also the philosophy of Shinto practices and Zen and Pure Land Buddhism infused in the Reiki system of healing practice, for example). One of the reasons I could walk lightly and peacefully during that week occurred because of all the ancestors that supported our journey and ceremony. I felt their presence and knew ‘they had my back’. I was not alone. The ancestors deepened the ‘we’, the whole of community and thinned the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds. The ancestors made their journey home in the final death going from one existence to another. They know how to guide us if we ask and listen.
We may not know the way forward during these times. We may not be able to see through the crisis of our generation. We may not remember how to come home to our true nature, our true ways of knowing in the profound disconnects we are collectively experiencing at this time. But our ancestors know how to help us. They know how to teach us a way to love, to return to the peace of the Universe that is available in the wisdom they have cultivated and nurtured through the journeys of tragedy and triumph–in the physical and spiritual worlds they have travelled. Our ancestors know to bring us back to what matters, to what is sacred and precious–water, land, food, community, laughter and kindness, healing our wounds, sharing, pleasures of food and medicine and friendships.
These reflections are a sample of the learning and understanding I gained in walking, step by step, carrying water for 6 days some 300kms. Water is precious. Her spirit is sacred. Each footstep reminded me of her life-giving medicine, especially when she is flowing and pure. And so I walked in peace, gently, lightly, joyfully, in deep gratitude for the ancestors who gave us this ceremony and the way to return home to ourselves and the love we seek and are meant to carry in our hearts for all life.
As this water walk ceremony shaped my Reiki practice, my Reiki practice also shaped my walking. Reiki kept me grounded, centred, with calm mind and peaceful heart. This gift allowed me to carry water with peace in my heart and joy in my song. The whole of this water walk, the ceremony and the months of planning, the teachings and learning, is in now part of my cells, my body tissue and inner waters. I am changed by this water walk of 8 years. The relationships with creation, with one another, and indeed with water and the waters within me have been transformed. I bring this wisdom and peace into my healing work with clients. Like water, the ripples of wisdom and medicine flow outward to the family and community that surrounds us. Like this water walk has done, connecting with, supporting and dedicating ourselves to something greater than ourselves, to Mother Earth as our first orientation, can restore our sense of belonging, our sense of identity and of purpose. And as a ripple effect of this dedication, profound healing happens and our lives become deeply changed. For all this and much more, I am soulfully grateful to my dear friend and Elder Mary Anne Caibaiosai. Peace.
For your reflections:
1) What do you do where you are called to put aside your ego for awhile? What happens?
2) Our true orientation in life can offer us a sense of belonging, of identity and even of purpose. What would you need to let go to reorient your life and mind towards a higher joy and peace that is equally grounded in our Mother Earth and her waters? (Spiritual peace is woven in our embodied connection with Earth)
3) I regularly hear from clients and people I meet in general that they are looking for authentic community, for spiritual community that is grounded and authentic, responsive to the genuine need for peace in this world. What comforts are you willing to release to experience the authenticity of love and connection, healing and harmony, balance and peace in your relationships and with all of creation (that which is life and sustains your life)?
You want to engage?
1)If you wish to learn a spiritual practice and self healing hands on practice that supports calm mind, balance and harmony of body and spirit, and join us in Reiki community, speak with me. Go here to learn more. www.shirleylynnmartin.com/reiki
2) For those in the KW region, you are welcome to join in monthly Anishinaabe water ceremony that occurs on a Saturday morning beside the Grand River and discover the beauty and the life-changing experience of awakening your relationship with water. Go to www.grandriverwaterwalk.com to find the dates.
3) Become a client and start the healing journey towards peace, joy, health and meaningful relationships–in all directions. Email me at shirley@shirleylynnmartin.com
See you next week!
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