Divining

First, make your divining rods.

To do this, take two metal coat hangers. You know the ones, the kind that you get from the dry cleaners, the ones that seem to multiply in the back of the closet and get relegated to supporting your old clothes, the clothes that are next in line for the Sally Ann. These hangers actually hide a divine purpose: sourcing out our life source.

To transform these utilitarian hangers into divining rods, cut off the curved hook and one of the shoulder supports. Bend the remaining shoulder support and bottom brace to form a right angle. You are now holding divining rods. 

Take your rods outside. Begin divining.

Start the process by preparing your divining rods. To do this, hold a rod in each hand, grasping close to the end of the arm of the rod. Extend your arms and spin the rods quickly. Stop spinning after 30 seconds or so. Now, hold the rods in front of you in an upside down "L" position with the horizontal portion of the "L" pointing straight ahead of you. Begin walking forward slowly. As you pass over a water source, the rods will slowly turn in your hands, following the line of the water coursing below your feet.

This works. Truly. As I walked slowly across our field, rods at the ready, I couldn't help but feel skeptical. But then I couldn't stop myself from laughing when the rods started to turn in my hands, aligning themselves perfectly to show where a lost irrigation pipe ran under the soil beneath my feet. And though the process in also called witching, the experience of having the rods turn in my hands, of feeling their energy work independently of the hands holding them, feels less of witchcraft and more of divine purpose, for there, below my feet, lay water, that substance upon which all life survives or fails. And though this exercise revealed only an irrigation pipe for which we were searching, divining will also reveal other previously unknown water sources. Divining for water is a true connection to the land. It gets no more basic than this: the earth revealing its most valuable resource to us. All through two basic divining rods formed from the waste of modern, industrial life.

Imagine.