A crevasse in the ground, a passage between underground water and a stream, a keyhole, a threshold. A spring is not—as it is often defined—the beginning, but rather a secret place, a link. It allows a person to draw from the link between two worlds.

“The flowing water is ‘alive,’ restless. It is a source of inspiration, it heals and prophesies. Streams and rivers reveal power, life, and eternity: they exist and are alive. In this way, they gain autonomy, and humans continue to worship them despite other epiphanies and religious revolutions,” Mircea Eliade wrote in A History of Religious Ideas. The worship of water can be found in every culture, just like tales of the springs and the water of life.

Zargan Nasordinova, a Muslim refugee from Chechnya who has lived in Warsaw for over a decade, says of her homeland, “It’s like your soul is there, and you are constantly fighting for her to come back to you. Here it is beautiful; there is freedom here. But where you were born, you grew up; there is a big part of your life left there. I really like my country, especially the mountains. Do you know what our water is like,