Sweet Water and Small Altars

Our little altar.

On Releasing What Is Stuck

This week I took my daughter to the Guadalupe River.

The water was clear in that way only living water can be — green-gold light moving over stone, steady and unhurried. The kind of river that has carried generations without needing to announce itself. I have learned over the years that when something in my chest feels compressed, when life begins to harden around the edges, I go to sweet water.

In my tradition, rivers are not metaphors. They are presence. They are consciousness.

They are mothers.

The Orisha have had my heart for over twenty years. Oshun — keeper of sweet waters, movement, fertility, beauty, and diplomacy — is not an aesthetic for me. She is a relationship. A devotion. A living current that has shaped my spiritual backbone. And when I stand at a river, I do not stand alone. I stand inside of that lineage of reverence.

There is a misunderstanding that ritual must be elaborate to be effective. That power is found in the complexity of tools, the perfection of symbols, the geometry of the altar.

But anyone can assemble a machine.

Not everyone carries the current.

Authority in ritual does not come from the objects. It comes from the presence of the one who stands before it. When the spirit is aligned, when the heart is steady, when intention is clean, the smallest act becomes enormous.

What we built that morning was not elaborate. It was a giving space — a small, simple place of reciprocity. A few crackers. Purple daisies. A stone. A coin. Two candles. Nothing ornamental. Just what we had.

Altars are not about asking. They are about balance.

If you ask the land to move something for you, you must be willing to move something for the land. If you ask the water to carry your burden, you must feed it in return. That exchange is respect. It is an acknowledgment that you are not the only living force present.

We fed the birds, and we fed the river. A few crackers were scattered intentionally. A small sweetness is offered. We spoke to our ancestral mothers. We asked the bank's guardians to hear us. We asked — clearly — for acceptance. And we agreed to listen if the answer was no.

Then the release began.

My daughter held each purple bloom in her perfect, slender hand and named what it carried. A stress. A grief. A pressure. A concern that had been sitting too long in the body. She whispered it into the petals and placed the flower in the current.

One by one.

Water does what crowbars cannot. It softens what has hardened. It works its way into the smallest fracture in the concrete of our lives and widens it gently, persistently, until what felt immovable begins to shift.

We watched the blooms turn in the light and drift away. We did not chase them. We did not reach back for them.

Above us, a restless gathering of vultures moved through the trees.

Many see a vulture as decay. I see endurance. I see transformation. I see the intelligence of survival and the promise that nothing is wasted. In my spiritual life, that symbolism is not separate from sweet water. Oshun governs prosperity and flow — but prosperity is not naïve. It understands death, compost, and reclamation. Vulture and river both know how to transmute what others discard.

When we finished, and the last flower was released, one vulture broke from the group and landed in the tree beside us. Close. Intent. Watching.

It did not feel theatrical. It felt transactional.

There are moments when you know something has been accepted.

Not fixed. Not erased. But received.

Small rituals like this matter because they require only one thing: that you show up fully.

No elaborate preparation. No perfection. No performance. Just your body, your breath, your honesty, and the willingness to give as much as you are asking to receive.

If you are feeling stuck — if stress has hardened into something that feels structural — take it to sweet water.

My baby, her flower, and the Guadalupe.

A Simple River Release Ritual

1. Create a small giving space.Set a tiny altar or offering place with what you have — a bit of food, a coin, a flower, a candle. This is not decoration. It is reciprocity.

2. Set your intention clearly. Speak aloud to your ancestors, the guardians of the water, or both. Ask them to hear you. Ask for a sign of acceptance — or denial — and be willing to receive either.

3. Feed the river. Offer a small portion of food or sweetness to the land and the living beings within it. This honors the exchange.

4. Release intentionally. Hold each flower bloom in your hand. Whisper one specific stress, grief, or pressure into it. Ask the water to carry it. Place it into the current and let it go.

5. Stay and breathe.Sit quietly. Feel the space. Let the land feel you.

6. Give thanks and depart without looking back. Acknowledge what has held you. Then leave.

You do not turn around because you trust that the work is already moving.

The most powerful rituals are rarely the loudest ones. They are the quiet exchanges between you and the living world — moments when the river carries what you cannot, and something in you softens enough to let it.

That morning, something shifted.

And that is enough. We took the rest and ran like the Guadalupe.