The following encounter with the River Glen in Northumberland, UK, took place last year whilst facilitating a group on the Living Waters course hosted online by Schumacher College in Devon, UK. The first of six visits planned around the course, I use the moment to introduce my group, their rivers, and our activities to the living world. This sets the intention for our creative, collaborative efforts to merge with, and be informed by, each other and the greater whole: we lean into the possibility of reciprocal communication with the living world throughout. While nothing especially significant appears to arise from this encounter, the possibility of newness through renewal is strongly felt. The group and I went on to share extraordinary experiences and synchronicities in our weekly meets and our work together is ongoing. The little episode that follows reminds me of the potency that relating with the living world imbues our lives and relationships with, revealing our entangled connections in ways that endlessly surprise. It also raises questions about our Western, dualistic tendencies to consider inside/outside as separately defined and independently organised, when the lived, felt reality suggests otherwise…
Tuesday 7th March 2023 about 10am
Cold, with a dusting of snow.
The scene as I approach River is serene, as if the cool air has quietened the world, hushed it into a state of anticipation.
I bow at the head of the path that leads to River and announce my desire to visit. High in a tree beside me a robin sings; my heart flutters in response. I listen for a while before heading down the path. Looking back, my tracks appear in the light covering of snow, revealing my presence. What else may it show up I wonder, remembering the deer tracks I had found in the last snowfall.
River.
Alive, spirited, gurgling. Like a baby. River here is young, fresh from the hills, and there are a few miles to wend before reaching the sea. I bow in the directions of upriver and down and hum the tune that came to me when I first started these visits several years ago. The tune has become ours.
Down by the water’s edge I place my hand in the icy liquid and speak – of this course and my group members. Of our plans to journey together with other bodies of water that are really just one body. Our body. Speaking of the time we first began these intimate conversations, the world and I, I feel a tear run down my cheek which I catch with my tongue, tasting the salt, the ocean that resides within. I wonder about that tear. Where it has been. Who it has passed through. Ancestral knowledge and lived experience together. I wonder if it strains to reach the ocean too, and so I let the next tear fall to the ground in its presumed bid for freedom.
River we.
In the middle of River’s current, underwater rocks create splashes on the surface. Some droplets reach high as if the water is straining to meet the stars. Maybe that’s what we are, bodies of water reaching to touch the stars. I think about today’s full moon and how pretty River will be tonight bathed in moonlight.
Realising I have failed to bring gifts, I look around. A large rock catches my eye so I stoop to pick it up. Bone cold, I cradle Rock in my hands until my heat has transferred. Holding Rock close to my lips I whisper, “Take my warmth, the warmth of my heart. Take it into River and share my love” and I throw Rock high above River, watching it descend with a splash, a bridge of sparkling droplets that hang in mid-air just for a moment, before falling to merge once more with the gurgling current.
Furry buds are bursting through thin spits of willow. New is pushing through, and always so it seems.
Turning to leave, I bow before making my way slowly back up the path. Sunshine sparkles on snow. It is so very good to be alive today.
The next Living Waters course hosted by Schumacher College runs from 12th March to 30th April 2024. Lecturers and facilitators include geologist and Deep Time wizard Stephan Harding, illuminating environmental philosopher Freya Mathews, enlivened poetic biologist Andreas Weber, decolonising Indigenous knowledge researcher Sandra Wooltorton, and grace-filled ecological author and retired academic Peter Reason. For more information and to reserve a place please visit the course info page here.