This first episode is my origin story, and it starts with a little girl who jumped in ponds, streams, and even cattle troughs on our ranch.

I grew up following my father on his dowsing trips. Some days we'd drive miles to the only willow tree I ever saw as a child so he could cut a Y-shaped branch. Other days, he'd skip the willow branches and use an old pair of pliers instead, holding the handles out in the same Y shape.

Those pliers still get used in my house. He gave them to me when I left for college, and they're a reminder of the real education I got on the farm.

My father told me he could feel the underground rivers and aquifers moving beneath his feet. To him, water wasn't dead. It was alive, pulsing, and communicating. Thousands of cattle depended on the water he found, and so did my family.

My brother still uses divining rods as a builder today. I'm witching for water in different ways now, following shamanic traditions and tapping into water as a living element.

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