Magical Missive: How to Make Holy Water

Hola, Miracles,

Today’s letter is in response to a question I am often asked: how do I make Holy Water?

Gather water from a river or a brook or a frog-filled pond. Kneel on the muddy bank and plunge your entire arm into the cold depths until your fingers brush rock or sandy bottom, or water plants, sighing in the current. Fill your cup, your mason jar, your water bottle with the tiny drops of life that hold worlds within worlds. Say thank you. Say please. Ask permission. Leave something in return…a bit of your hair or a shaving from your nail or a few drops of blood.

Or, take in some of the snow that your children played in, that your dog rolled around in, that covers the rosebush your mother gave you the year before she died. Melt it down over a sweetly scented fire and pour it in a bottle of rock crystal or emerald-green glass.

Take the bathwater that you sat and wept in when you lost your lover, your child, your best friend. Take the water that you washed your child’s feet in, that you gave to your beloved on that hot and dusty day, that you cried in hot gushing tears when unexpected tragedy struck. Keep it in terracotta close to the entrance of your home. Spring it liberally on everything and everyone that needs a blessing. Share it far and wide.

You can always refill your cup.