Spring water drinking from streams etc

Does anyone still drink untreated water in the countryside? Perhaps if you live far enough out you have this kind of water piped into your home, is it safe to drink, I remember drinking from streams as a kid, it never harmed me, would I do it now? it would depend where I was but i'd rather trust a stream than shop bought bottled water.

If I may......

Is it safe to drink water from a well?

The only difference between drinking water from a spring and from a well is that there is no pump needed to access the water. You can get the same impurities in a well as you can from a spring.

I grew up with our only source of water being a spring. Never had a bit of trouble with it.

The times of today are different from yesterday. Too much rubbish thrown into lakes,springs and natural water ways.

I remember as a child watching the sun sparkle on clear water in streams. So clear we could see our face in it.

There is a stream at the back of where I live,ducks and swans use it,coming down from the main river Ouze.
it is filthy and filled with garbage. Do the council do anything about it? Not on your life!

Joanie

When i was growing up you could drink the water from streams it was pure and cold straight from the mountains,not now farmers putting slurry near to it and it falling in .

Namaste

I drink from the rivers that flow off the Pennines but high up the dales. Delicious !
It's part of my dedication ritual - a pinch of soil washed down by river water.

Remember our ancestors drank from rivers and springs for hundreds of thousands of years !

The water up the north was counted as the cleanest water in Britain.
Beautiful sparkly water. Remember places like Rothbury,Morpeth,up on the borders of Scotland. Never seen scenery like that.

I'm getting home sick....

Would you drink from this stream?



This picture is of the headwaters of the Rogue River, which flows through my city. The river begins on the side of Mt. Mazama....more commonly called Crater Lake, Oregon.

This is it as a kid I regularly drank from streams i'd be scared to now.

Any source of water may become contaminated and unsafe and regular checking may be advisable even for those least at risk.

An emerging problem involves the risk of ground water contamination from the chemicals added to the water used in the recently-adopted 'fracking' process (hydraulic fracturing of rocks) for the extraction of shale gas.

Contamination has already become an issue in the USA and a similar process is currently being developed for the UK. We're assured that there's little similar risk as we Brits willl do it so much more carefully - yeah, right!

I have seen different sample of the same water and some were 'thought upon' differently. Some were given harmful thoughts and some were given blessings. The molecules of the same water samples were all different. The one with the blessings formed beautiful patterns in the water. Like crystalline snowflakes. It was beautiful. Some people do not have the awareness to see their power and resort to curses. Thing is these judgements can often form the experience you are having. In a way if your mind holds negative values you are only harming yourself. It reminds me of a quote about sowing seeds, and reaping what you sow.

mac wrote:Any source of water may become contaminated and unsafe and regular checking may be advisable even for those least at risk.

An emerging problem involves the risk of ground water contamination from the chemicals added to the water used in the recently-adopted 'fracking' process (hydraulic fracturing of rocks) for the extraction of shale gas.

Contamination has already become an issue in the USA and a similar process is currently being developed for the UK. We're assured that there's little similar risk as we Brits willl do it so much more carefully - yeah, right!

Amen to all of that. For me, they can frack all of London in general and Westminster in particular.

SpiritVoices wrote:The water up the north was counted as the cleanest water in Britain.
Beautiful sparkly water. Remember places like Rothbury,Morpeth,up on the borders of Scotland. Never seen scenery like that.

I'm getting home sick....

Joanie, these are some of my "special" places

https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/northeast/800px-Kisdon_Force-1.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/northeast/River_wear_at_durham.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/northeast/BamburghCastle.jpg

norseman wrote:

SpiritVoices wrote:The water up the north was counted as the cleanest water in Britain.
Beautiful sparkly water. Remember places like Rothbury,Morpeth,up on the borders of Scotland. Never seen scenery like that.

I'm getting home sick....

Joanie, these are some of my "special" places

https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/northeast/800px-Kisdon_Force-1.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/northeast/River_wear_at_durham.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/northeast/BamburghCastle.jpg

Fantastic,Norseman.
My son wants me to visit up north this summer. Think I'll making the decision to go visit...
Wonder if I will come back....

Thanks so much,I really appreciate seeing these views of my home county.

Joan

Make sure that your son takes you to see Northumberlandia, the latest addition to our "big" public art like the Angel of The North

btw the first of the photos above is my "temple".
Angel - https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/1b0b7bf7.jpg
Northumberlandia - https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/98e84655.jpg
[the white areas are now ornamental lakes]

That's a new one on me,where is the situation that houses the second one.
I saw the Angel of the North the last time I was up North. That would be the year 2000. Haven't been back there since then.

The North is certainly coming out of hiding. And so it should....
The 'Geordies' have a lot to be proud of.....

Thank you,Norseman for keeping me up with the Northern region...

I remember taking my husband around all the beauty spots up there.
That would have been his first visit in 1980. Met him down south but made sure he knew what the other end of the UK was like.

Northumberlandia is near Ashington as I recall. It was a bribe to allow an open-cast coal mine to be founded on a private estate. All the soil [ 1.5 million tonnes ] was moved next door and used to model our big, busty Green Lady and She is screened off from the coal working by screens of trees.

Today I walked the cliff top from Seaburn to South Shields. Glorious !

https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/CNorseman20130061_zps19d572c6.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/CNorseman20130064_zps1fd397d8.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/CNorseman20130061_zps19d572c6.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/CNorseman20130057_zps87ad90f6.jpg
[only had my phonecam today]

We moved back to the North to look after my mother. But settled in Northumberland. To be nearer to the beach. Have you heard of Blyth?
We bought a bungalow in a small place called South Beach. 2 mins from the sea and beach. Wonderful. Ashington wasn't far from us. All round those regions were coal mines. Most have closed down now if not all.

Seaton Sluice is another lovely place,where the small boats used to come in after fishing. Whitley Bay was a popular holiday place. I remember as a child visiting around there after the second world war. Barriers to the beach still there. Barbed wire still there to stop the German boats and men getting through a gateway to the UK.

My childhood memories...
Now to have a look at your pictures...

norseman wrote:Northumberlandia is near Ashington as I recall. It was a bribe to allow an open-cast coal mine to be founded on a private estate. All the soil [ 1.5 million tonnes ] was moved next door and used to model our big, busty Green Lady and She is screened off from the coal working by screens of trees.

Today I walked the cliff top from Seaburn to South Shields. Glorious !

https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/CNorseman20130061_zps19d572c6.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/CNorseman20130064_zps1fd397d8.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/CNorseman20130061_zps19d572c6.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/CNorseman20130057_zps87ad90f6.jpg
[only had my phonecam today]

Marsden,I know well. Recognised the lighthouse. Have you ever visited the caves there? I remember going once. A large cave booked out for parties etc. All electricity for amenities. Also Alnwick is a lovely place to visit.
Lots of haunted pubs etc around the Northumberland areas.

Large cave is now a pub/restaurant with a lift running down from the cliff top. It's called Marsden Grotto and it has a beach level bar. Was in there this afternoon for a pint.

https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/DSCF0065_zpseaa8cf00.jpg

View outside
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/Marsden/DSCF0071_zps8bf035b4.jpg

The sound of the sea !
https://s282.photobucket.com/user/norseman_photo/media/Marsden/DSCF0091_zpsf0ae474f.mp4.html

Trying to remember the last time I visited Marsden. Talking about the cave now.
My God,it must have been about 50 years ago....
a...and it's still the same? That place reminds me of a coastal area in Melbourne in Oz.

There were a set of rocks down below from where we stood on high. Think they were called The Three Sisters or something like that. Very much the same.
Very moving pictures,I love them,Norseman.
You have taken me back to a journey of the past. I liked the one where I can see the sea rolling in......
God bless you!

Joan

To "kick off", I have my own temple complete with altar. It's where I first performed a formal dedication to Gaia.
It has a waterfall, a deep pool below the fall, and a rock shelf beside the pool which is my altar where I place things that I find - pebbles, feathers, pine cones, things like that.
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/northeast/800px-Kisdon_Force-1.jpg

But, I would like to tell the story about possibly the most "holy" place in Britain - a henge 5000 years-old that we still use.



To tell this from the beginning, I have to go back in time,  back to around 10000 BC when ice ruled the world and we of the tribes lived on the great open tundra. We hunted the herds that grazed the plains and competed with the predators for food. Life was not soft and easy but we survived. Our shaman became one with the animals and we hunted well. To sunward on the plain, some of our people built settlements in the marshes where the great rivers flowed to the sea. They built their houses on stilts and survived by fishing and collecting shellfish.
 
[ Presently, one of these villages is being excavated. It is called Star Carr and it was built around 8700  BC before Britain became an island. The marsh eventually drained and a peat bog formed which preserved the settlement and many artefacts]
 
[ Around 6000 BC, the tundra began to flood and by 5000 BC, Britain was an island.]
 
We noticed that the sea was eating into our land from the north and south as the ice retreated. The herds that we depended upon were also in retreat and we were forced to follow them. We came to the sunward edge of our land to find high steep cliffs and, for a while, we settled there and lived from the sea. Eventually, the sea rose even further and we were forced to find a way through the cliffs through narrow valleys into the land behind, a land of dense forests with herds that were unfamiliar but also wolves, bear, and wild hogs. We struggled to survive as the new land was colder than the plain and we had to learn to forage to add to whatever meat we could hunt. We also found that we were not alone in this new land. There were spirits and wild magic in the forests. Our shaman made ritual dances to ask for aid and guidance of the spirits and, eventually they succeeded in learning the rituals of power to enter the world of these spirits to gain their advice.
 
[ This new land is what we know as the North York Moors which rise directly from the North Sea in steep cliffs, and run westward to the escarpment of the Hawarden Hills where the land falls off to the Vale of York. There are 12000 archeological sites on the moors including 700 ancient monuments. There are also 3000 Bronze Age burial sites known so far but that comes later in my tale.]
 
We pushed further and further towards the setting sun to the very edge of this high plateau to find more steep cliffs leading down to a flat fertile plain where we built settlements. At one special place, our shaman identified a place of power stronger than any they had come across before and declared the area to be a holy place. We began to build a spiritual centre where we could commune with the gods of this land and so began the great work of the tribes. Priests arrived to aid us from far-off Orkney  and they taught us the rituals and dances. Later, they went on to the south to build another centre made of stone. [Stonehenge –Orcadian pottery found there]
 
[Around 2000 BC, the Beaker People arrived from Europe to settle and about 600 BC the second wave of Celts arrived with their tools and weapons of iron.]
 
Thornborough Henge is an Earth bank henge with three central rings aligned with the stars of Orion’s Belt. There were many smaller rings surrounding these main heneges. Connecting the three henges are processional ways. The henges were clad with gypsum, a brilliant white mineral, and, looking down from the edge of the Hawarden Hills escarpment, it must have seemed like a strange, other-worldly place.
We do not know what rituals and practices were undertaken there but it seems likely to have been a variation on the Cult of the Dead. It has been proposed that Thornborough, not Stonehenge, was the spiritual centre of England.
With the ascendancy of the Celts, the henge became the centre of their faith, dedicated to Brigantia, the patron goddess of Northern England and the large Celtic Confederation who took their name from the goddess, the Brigantes who were dominant in both England and Southern Ireland. So, Thornborough is probably the longest-active spiritual site in England and still used today.
 
The central ring of the three is a powerful portal which boils with energies and is very “noisy” in terms of ancestral spirits. I have never been tempted to open it as I would probably not return from it. We held the Beltane festival there, and the next festival is Mabon on September 22nd, the Autumn Equinox, and it promises to be a good one. If you are an eagle flying over the area, looking for a meal, you may see a possibly familiar figure stood in the centre of the central ring, arms outstretched, facing North, then South, then East, then West calling on the Lords of the Powers of the Elements.
 
This is Thornborough Henge from the air
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/df706cf9.png
The third circle is inside the wood at the top. From end to end it is one and a half miles long which makes it the largest neolithic monument in Europe.

So, that was a man-made holy place. Finally, I would like to take you to a huge natural holy place in the North Pennines
First, the body of the cathedral
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/northpennines/highcupnick-8620b.jpg
and then the altar at the head of the cathedral
https://2img.net/h/i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk267/norseman_photo/northpennines/ab30819j.jpg

This is High Cup Nick, named after the devil stamping his hoof and creating the bowl shape. [Actually it was carved out by a glacier but the devil is a better story.
So, there you are. Some of the Holy North and I haven't even mentioned Lindisfarne yet - another time perhaps. [That is not just holy but is highly magical and spiritual - I have done overnight vigils there and seen/heard wonderful things in the dark.]

I meant to reply to your last post,Norseman.      Must have missed this.

I wanted to thank you for all the pictures and descriptions of places you have shown on here.

I really do appreciate it.    You have brought the north back to me in a wonderful way....

Thank you.

Joan