Sacred waters
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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As opposed to holy water, water elevated with the sacramental blessing of a cleric (Altman 2002:131), sacred waters are characterized by tangible topographical land formations such as rivers, lakes, springs, and oceans. These organic bodies of water have attained religious significance not from the modern alteration or blessing, but were sanctified through mythological or historical figures. Sacred waters have been exploited for cleansings, healings, initiations, and death rites (Altman 2002:6).
Ubiquitous and perpetual fixations with water occur across religious traditions. It tends to be a central element in the creations accounts of almost every culture with mythological, cosmological, and theological myths (Altman 2002:3-6,13-20). In this way, many groups characterize water as “living water,” or the “water of life” (Varner 2004:19, Altman 2002:2, Strang 2004:83). This means that it gives life and is the fundamental element from which life arises. Each religious or cultural group that feature waters as sacred substances tends to favor certain categorizations of some waters more than others, usually those that are most accessible to them and that best integrate into their rituals (Altman 2002:3).
