It was the water communion at church, where each family brings a small container full of water that holds some meaning for them.  Everyone pours a little into the basin and says a few words.  Purified, this becomes the "holy water" for our congregation -- used in blessings and welcomings.  It's water from travels or from home or from a favorite spot on the seashore.  Or it is just water -- Earth blood as one man put it -- the stuff that links us all.

And we all do love water, probably because we are in essence still sea creatures.  We sweat and cry seawater.  We have calcium bones rather than the more sensible carbony wood, because that's what sea creatures build their structures of and we never broke the habit.  Our bodies' cells live in their wet, saline habitats --  in their own microcosmic ocean.  Our ancestors didn't so much leave the sea behind 400 million years ago; they learned to pick it up and carry it with them.