Take the Waters

As long as there have been humans, we have gathered by rivers and hot springs, oceans and lakes, to cleanse, rejuvenate and relax

For millennia, communal bathing was the beating heart of many societies. Yet over the past hundred years, as private bathrooms have proliferated globally, countless bathing rituals have disappeared. Where once there were dozens of people laughing, fighting and praying in water, today a lone individual stands below a showerhead.

In Take the Waters, journalist Mélissa Godin embarks on a journey around the world to places that still hold their bathing rituals dear. She soaks in sentōs in Japan, sweats in saunas in Finland and travels down the Ganges River in India. Along the way, she chronicles how profoundly water connects people to their communities, environments and bodies. Yet she also shows how forces of modernity are pushing some of these beloved practices to the brink of extinction.

Combining reportage, history and nature writing, Take the Waters makes the case that in an ever-polarised, ever-lonely world, reviving communal bathing might be what we need to bring us closer together.