Going Green with Gray Water Your city may experience a water shortage due to drier than normal weather. Your future may include reducing consumption; if you are on well-water consuming less may be a consideration for you also. Maybe this bucket-in-the-sink conserving practice will encourage an easy way to begin. A greater willingness to conserve water in our household began several years ago with day-old pooch water. Rather than pouring the gray water remaining in her bowl down the drain every morning, we started using it to Greenly care for the potted plants outside our front door, the Mouth of Chi. This felt right and we found it takes precious little to keep geraniums happy. Five years ago our eyes widened noticing the cool, almost-clear water whirling down the drain. Buckets-full vanish every day: water lost before heating enough to wash dishes, the remains after steaming veggies or boiling eggs, pasta water, and a bit from rinsing out the coffee pot. We go through quite a splash washing our hands especially if we are in the healthy habit of simultaneously singing “Happy Birthday”. Water by the gallon goes down the drain every day – gray water we might use in a number of ways. The effort to conserve and reuse more gray water expanded to placing a plastic bucket under the kitchen sink faucet. If trying this calls to you, look in the garage for a plastic bucket rather than buying one. It’s Greener to use a bucket you already have. Therein we collect water, not contaminated, that would ordinarily go down the drain. Contaminated includes anything ants might savor. Collect gray water sans sugar and fat. Pour the last cold black coffee or tea sip into the mixture. No juice or food crumbs, please. Be careful children do not play in this water and pets do not drink it. Ants are not interested in, and plants do not seem to mind, hand and dish soap rinsed into the gray water. Plants are also not bothered by pasta-starch residue in the water. Luckily, soap and leftovers in pasta-water dissolve into the soil. The amount of gray water you collect and reuse will amaze you. If your planted areas are small, like ours, uncoiling the garden hose becomes a rare occurrence. Other Green uses for gray water are to pour it into a crusty saucepan for soaking or rinse plastic packaging before tossing into the recycle container. Let used gray water flow down the drain. Will gray-water collecting shrink the water bill? It has not reduced ours even once - but the exercise does conserve water. If you were to start using gray water and your friend or neighbor were and their friend or neighbor tries it, the Green ball would be rolling. This practice can positively affect local community’s water conservation in a very easy way. Does conservation support Feng Shui? Yes, whenever we take a step toward increasing our connection with Green (i.e. Gaia), and whenever we consciously take a step toward acknowledging and appreciating our homes and neighborhoods we energize our Feng Shui. Also remember, the Feng Shui Water element symbolizes opportunity and money. This being so, repair all drips and leaks. We value water and do not want our conservation effort undone by drip… drip… drip. To carry our Feng Shui thought a step further, the entry door to your home may be in the Career Life Area (front, center third), use this doorway to take the gray water from your house to the plants. Water, the Career Life Area element, and the front-door Mouth of Chi combine energies, so taking water through this passage is another way to acknowledge flowing opportunities. All variety of opportunities flow in and out of our lives - we welcome and accept good fortune simultaneously demonstrating a willingness to give back. Pouring gray water for blooms is an auspicious time to express gratitude. We are blessed to have water enough to drink, even enough to share with plants. Affirmations In gratitude and with an intention to serve. |
| Feng Shui at Your Service Vikki Albers, Consultant 707 . 315 . 1629 / vikki9@fengshuiatyourservice.com |
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| Clearing clutter is the single most important action to take to cause a shift toward the Greater Good in your life. |
"2005 marks the beginning of the United Nations Decade of Water. It is our individual responsibility to learn all we can about water, the most precious resource on our planet, and to help shift the consciousness through our thoughts, through our words and prayers, and through our commitment to respect each other with love and gratitude. May our understanding of water help bring peace to all humankind." --Masaru Emoto |
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