Dowsing Family

Recently, at a soirée for authors of a terrific new book, Unplugged Voices: 125 Tales of Art and Life From Northern New Mexico, The Four Corners, and The West (soon to arrive on bookstore shelves; vignettes brought together by friend, Sara Frances), I talked with an author of one of the vignettes in the book, the writer and her husband who are associated with the Greek Orthodox Church in Denver; t hey both grew up in Greece.  Somehow, the topic of conversation got around to dowsers.  Neither of them had ever heard of a dowser, and, when I began to explain it for them, I used the term “water witch.”  That was even more confusing.  They had never heard of a water witch, either.

I have a daughter who is a dowser.  She doesn’t like to talk about it¸ but I’m going to discuss it here, anyway.  There are so many, many people who think it is an “old wives’ tale” or that it is not sane to think there are people who can find water (as well as metals) simply without fancy instruments.  But, my daughter can find water and metals.  And, people need to know that dowsing is a real thing; IT IS NOT AN OLD WIVES’ TALE.”  (Can you hear me shouting?)

My husband’s father always told about a man with whom he worked who was a water witch – that is what we called them in those days.  Joe Stroh was a water witch.  “One time [probably in the 1940s]”, said my father-in-law. “There was a serious drought in the area; cattle were in trouble.  Joe had cattle in a large field on his property.”  He instructed my father-in-law (Paul) to get his hip boots and two shovels and return to the field.  Using a stick cut from one of the trees or bushes in the field, Joe criss-crossed the field.  Corner-to-corner and side-to-side.  He walked with the stick in both hands, sticking out in front of him, parallel to the ground.  This was the way that Joe went about divining water.  Each  time Joe passed over the field with the “divining stick,” they would, at some point, move until they pointed to the ground.  And, every time they pointed to the ground, it was at the same place.  “Here,” Joe told Paul.  “Here is where we dig.”  And, dig, they did.  At a depth of three feet, there was enough water to sustain the cattle.

How did we learn that our daughter is also a dowser?  As it happened, the girls and I were on a weekend trip with Paul and Hulda (Larry’s mom and dad).  We were in the mountains, walking along a road that had a small bridge over a running stream.  And, of course, the topic of water witching came up, and the girls begged their grandfather to tell the story, once again.  Always ready to tell a good story from his past, Grandpa told the story of Joe Stroh and the cattle.  Of course, then, the girls all wanted to try being a water witch.  Grandpa cut the willow stick in the right shape and showed each girl how to hold the stick and how to move “just so” and see if the stick would go down when it detected water.

The first two girls who tried divining for water had no luck.  The stick did not go down; it just stayed parallel to the ground.  But, when the third girl took the stick and approached the bridge where the water was streaming under it, the stick went down!  “Okay, this is NOT FUNNY,” we said to her.  “Do it again.”  She did it, again and again; and every time the stick went down.  She assured us that she wasn’t doing anything to make the stick go down.  Not believing her and before her next try, we put a jacket over her head so she could not see where she was.  Still the stick went down!  And, the next time she tried, two of us held her hands with the ends of the stick – held them with very tight grasps.  Still the stick went down.  Grandpa told her that clearly she was a dowser.

She was in high school and had occasion to write a term paper; she chose dowsing as her topic.  To write the paper, she found a dowser living close by so she could interview him (he had been hired by many mineral companies to find the metals they were looking for).  After listening carefully to her explanation of why she wanted and needed to interview him, he invited her to go with him to the parking lot of the apartment building where he lived.  Giving her a proper dowsing stick, he directed her to criss-cross the parking lot.  “Find the water,” he told her.

She spent some time doing as directed and each time found the place where the water coursed under the pavement.  “You are a dowser,” he told her.  After using the twig, he gave her two divining rods – metal rods, bent in an “L” shape, with the short side to be held in the hands, and the long sides held parallel to each other and to the ground.  The water or mineral for which the dowser is searching will cause the rods to cross in the form of an “X.”

Some time later, my students at a local hospital where I taught third and fourth grades, as well as the kindergarten children from another classroom, wanted to “practice” dowsing.  We scattered pieces of wood and some metals around the common area where we planned to allow the children to “play” at being a dowser.  We covered all of the objects with paper, so that the children could not see what was under the paper.  Their divining rods were the metal rods I described above.  Every child had a try at finding the metals.  First, the fourth-grade students.  Then, the third-grade students.  No dowsers among them.  Finally, the kindergarten students had their chance.  One of the boys took the divining rods and found every metal piece under the paper.  We had a kindergarten-age dowser!  The children loved the exercise.

And, now, imagine my surprise and excitement when I learned, just now, that one of my granddaughters is also a dowser.  As I was discussing this blog with her mom, she gave me the wonderful news that one of the grands learned two years ago that she, too, is a dowser.

My daughter, the dowser, does not really like to talk about her skill.  She says that finding water and/or metals causes something electric to move through her body.  And, I think she doesn’t like that, at all.  But, dowser, she is – like it or not!

(Thanks so much for Handyman Keith’s help in allowing me to photograph the tools of the dowser, as they would be used by a water witch.  And, no, he did not find any water or metals.)

Be Safe and Be Well

The Cranky Crone

Thoughtful comments are appreciated.