"Water is perhaps humanity's oldest symbol of life, sustenance, abundance, fertility, movement, generosity, permanence, and strength," writes Nathaniel Altman, the author of more than 20 books on natural health, ecology, and spirituality, including Sacred Trees. Although the world's earliest civilizations had deep respect for this precious resource and lionized it in creation myths, contemporary Western industrial nations seem to take water for granted and view it as disposable. The average person in one of these countries utilizes 100 times more water than his or her counterpart in a developing nation such as Cambodia, Honduras, or Uganda. Millions of gallons of water are wasted in the United States on lawns, shiny cars, or a spotless driveway. Poor water management through wasteful habits and leaky aqueducts squanders even more of this primary source of energy.

Altman covers the subject of sacred water from top to bottom with fascinating material on the oceans (90 percent of Earth's living space), rain, public baths, the Tibetan water initiation, sacred dew, irrigation, navigation and trade, fountains, reflecting pools, and much more. A superb chapter on water and wisdom reveals how spiritual teachers around the world have saluted the instructive qualities of water as representing sensitivity, deep emotions, changeability, adaptability, and responsiveness. Lao Tzu, Saint Francis, Paul Chaudel ("All that the heart desires can always be summed up by water"), and others challenge us to reverence this spiritual source of life, protect it, and be grateful for all of its abundant blessings. Nurturing sacred water, Altman contends, needs to be part of our eco-spirituality practice.