Encountering River ep.5/6

A unitive experience

By now we are beginning to feel as if we are making friends with Place. This week, as I remark, nothing much happens, and yet a feeling of oneness I experience during my visit to River feels profound, as if it needs noting…

Cycle 5: 23^rd June

Domestic and family concerns have almost fully occupied me these last ten days. Finally the opportunity to snatch a few hours arises through my husband’s offer to make dinner. I leave home just after 4pm. The day is blowy, with large white clouds causing the sun to play peek-a-boo with the earth.

I arrive at what is starting to feel like ‘my spot’. Everything is in full green garb. I greet Place with a thrill that feels like seeing an old friend, wondering if the feeling is all mine, or if some echo of it ripples around the scene. I smile at my not-knowing and proceed to walk down to River.

River is low today, gurgling and bubbling around bleached-white rocks. I turn left and follow the course downstream, revisiting the place I found last time close to the water’s edge. The flattened reeds and grasses look so inviting… I spread my cotton blanket out and settle myself, slipping off my shoes for extra comfort.

Comfort. I sit with the word and let it roll around inside my body. Belonging. We all seek to belong, to be comforted at times. My body feels heavy and pulled towards the earth, so I lie down, head pointing upstream, feet nestling in the long reeds. The week has been fraught with difficulties, and I let these rise and fall now with my breath, the sweet song of River filling my body. I close my eyes and feel such a yearning to merge with it all – with River, with the sounds, the wind moving the rushes… I have a sense once more of being inside River, of the bank and the wind and the trees and now me, all being expressions of River. A burning golden light begins to glow, as if it is pouring into me through my crown chakra on the top of my head. Hazy shapes and forms float on my inner screen, sensations and shapes I cannot find words for. I sink deep into the feeling and soon lose consciousness. 

I awake and time has passed. The sun has moved and the air feels cooler. I have no idea of the time and no means to tell it, having left my phone charging at home. Inside outside. I gaze at River and suddenly a small fish leaps in a curving arc above the water. If the fish cannot live without River I think, then River is also the fish. If I cannot live without air, food, and water, then Air, Earth and Water are also me. Such simple and obvious truths, I think. How did we come to forget so completely?

I pack up slowly, aware of the time and my human life going on somewhere else, smiling as I stand to say goodbye. Nothing much has happened for me to share with Peter I think, and yet something profound has occurred that I don’t want to leave unacknowledged, something subtle, on an energetic level. Soaking up the scene one last time before leaving, I bow, and sing out a round of the mantra I like to offer at these times. Walking back to the car I feel lighter. I feel River inside me.

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