Where does your water come from?

Have you ever thought about where the water that comes out of your tap actually comes from? I don’t mean the municipal authority that controls and provides your tap water, but the ecosystem that provides this precious resource to us every time we flip down our tap handle.

I was inspired to get more in touch with where my Oakland water comes from after seeing a post from Becca Piastrelli, a ceremonialist, ritual tender, author and host of the Belonging Podcast. She was sharing about creating a miniature art piece that she had displayed behind her kitchen tap, to remind her that the water we so often take for granted is a sacred being from a living ecosystem.

Luckily for us folks living in the East Bay, East Bay Mud has a great resource on their website which also includes a map of the journey our water takes from the Mokelumne river - the watershed they extract water from.*

Ever since seeing the sign Becca made to honor her own kitchen tap watershed, I’ve been wanting to make a sign for my own kitchen tap. It’s a great reminder that our urban faucets are not just magically spitting out water, but actually connected to the extraction of a precious resource from a living ecosystem.

If you also live in the East Bay, I am offering these little printable signs as a gift for you to download and display behind your own water source. They are prepped to print at either 4x4” (the size I printed for my own kitchen) or 4x6” size (a more standard frame proportion). I hope seeing this little sign every time you turn on your tap helps you to pause and appreciate the watershed that produces the water we all get to enjoy.

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*Last summer, Oakland resident Nina Gordon-Kirsch took her own inspiring journey in the opposite direction - on foot from her home to the headwaters of the Mokelumne River. Hearing about this pilgrimage was so inspiring, and although I’m not sure I’m quite rugged enough to attempt it myself, my bucket list definitely includes a visit to the Mokelumne headwaters. A very attainable goal!