Category Quick Links
🧿
Sacred Waters
🧼
Cleansing
🌞
Desalination
🌀
Spring
🪨
Aquifer
🐪
Water Scarcity
🌊
Tide
🔔
Water as Metaphor
🌫
Dew
🧍♀️
Waters of the Body
🧠
Fluid Intelligence
🌀
Contour Swales
💧
Hydration
😢
Tears
🗺
Watershed
⛲
Sacred Spring
💦
Water Harvesting
🧠
Flow (State)
🕳
Water Table
🌺
Greywater Garden
🔄
Recirculation
🪣
Rain Harvesting
🧬
Water Memory
🔷
Blue Mind
💦
Water
🌧
The Water Cycle
🌬
Evapotranspiration
🚿
Greywater
🌱
Keyline Design
🌀
Contour Swales
Definition
Shallow ditches dug along contour lines to capture and infiltrate water, recharging groundwater and preventing erosion.
Interpretation
Earth’s smile lines. Swales are sculpted pauses — ways to slow the rush of water, allow absorption, and nourish the roots. In permaculture, they are acts of reverent redirection.
Living Invitation
Find a slope near you and imagine where a swale would want to be. Ask the land: where are you thirsty?