SOLON & BEYOND – Water Witching: My experience

by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

This morning I’m going to write about Water Witching! This information is from an old yellowed bit of paper that I saved from years gone by… “Nearly every rural community in the United States has a water dowser who claims to be able to locate underground water by means of a diving or dowsing rod. The gift seems widespread or, at any rate, there are quite a few people who think (or try to persuade others to think) they possess the knack of finding water by use of a stick.

What is dowsing? Kenneth Roberts in his book Henry Gross and his Dowsing Rod gives a definition: “When certain sensitive individuals hold between their fingers a flexible Y -shaped branch with no intention of bending it, twisting it or moving it, the branch will, under certain conditions, turn downward. It bends in the hands of the individual who is holding it, even seems to turn itself with extreme force and independent of the will of the operator.

When such an individual grasping a branch or a dowsing rod, passes over a region crossed by subterranean and unknown sheets of water, the rod twists down with almost irresistible force.

Whether we accept this as fact or fiction, the art of dowsing is as old as the hills. It has been suggested that Moses had something like a divining rod in his hand when he found water in the wilderness. Such rods were a favorite subject with writers for centuries. In 1659 Gaspard Schott denounced the dowsing rod in his Magiae Universalis Naturae et Artis, proclaiming it an instrument of the devil. However, Schott seems to have had second thoughts on the matter, for some years later he wrote that people “…of great piety have used it with really marvelous results.”

Divining, or dowsing, for minerals was common, too. A large number of the Cornish tin mines are said to have been discovered by a diviner from Saxony in Elizabethan days.

There are people who refer to water dowsing as “water witching,” feeling that it is a supernatural procedure, but they are outnumbered by the skeptics who see nothing but fraud in the entire affair. These disbelievers claim that the movements of the stick are faked or they are due to unconscious muscular contractions. Dosing exponents, on the other hand, maintain that the movements are independent of the muscular control of the operator.

Would like to add a few words to the above article. I am very proud to state that I am, indeed a dowser or Water Witcher!… and I can’t explain the wonderful feeling when I first feel that stick starting to turn in my hand and point down to where the water is!…. It is beyond a miracle!

And now some news from Happyknits: In the “remaining the same” column, they are still closed to the public, but they can provide a curbside pickup or mail delivery for anything they have that your heart desires. Give them a call when they’re in the shop (Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m., or contact them by email or on Facebook and they will be happy to fulfill your request.

The Maine Yarn Cruise carries on in 2020, with a new format, through September 7. Instead of traveling from shop to shop in your car, try visiting each of the participating shops virtually. There is no passport or entry fee this year, so it’s easy to participate at any level. Each shop will feature its own special event or project, and a purchase from Happyknits will give you a chance to win one of the prizes, which they’ll reveal over the summer.

And now for Percy’s memoir: LIFE: Life’s made for living, And giving and sharing, And daring and caring. Life’s made for doing, Pursuing of dreams, Sowing and growing, Whatever the means. Revealing and feeling, And finding that you Must learn how to take it, To make it come true. Along with its ups, In spite of its downs, Life’s made of losses, and crosses and crowns. (words by Grace E. Easley).

And now an extra special one from Percy….Laughing Helps…it’s Like Jogging Inside.”

Hope these few words help in this difficult time.