Sometimes the rocks in the river have to move in order for the river to flow freely.
Friends can be like the ‘rocks’ in our lives. Ones that hold steady and true through the twists and turns of life. Times when our ‘river of life’ feels it is spiralling out of control and we are afraid we will get swept away by the current.
Yet, what if we are ‘meant to get swept away?’ The rocks hold us fast creating a dam in our river. The water starts to become a little putrid for water needs to flow in order to be healthy. Water moves in spirals it is not linear.
That is where many of us live in the ‘linear line of life’: Work, home, if we are lucky a beloved, kids, dog…..’doing life’. Is this what we are called to do? Truly? For some yes, others, No. What is our truth? Dare we follow our true path?
Or are we missing an invitation to the ‘journey of life’ like the journey of a river? Starting at the source spring perhaps a trickle, sometimes a waterfall springing free from the source active and eager to engage.
Some begin tentatively to follow and forge our way down ways across valleys, along pathways and byways. Trickling as we find more flow. More momentum, occasional whirl pools where we are unsure whether we will source it becomes so perilous, we put down and pick up pace and gather ourselves bounding over, around, sometimes slowing other times stopping to lay as a pool glistening, resting yet always moving.
We become playful pools, full of vitality and life giving home to tadpoles, lush plant life, we meet other streams, we can become a river where many meet, only again to find ourselves, our own tributary off on our own adventure again.
Always, we have the banks of the river. Our bodies. These too can take different forms. Sometimes slim, fast paced other times wide and curvy as they begin to meander in the middle phase of life, enjoying the grassy banks, more leisurely pace and interaction with other tributaries.
Rocks can help with the banks. They can also act as a barrier to movement, to flow, to vitality and life force. The truth of our path.
We can work and swirl around the rocks, crashing and thrashing stuck in our own torment through trauma bonding rather than flowing.
We can become complacent and dependent on them. Never fully listening to our own calling of where to dart next, which landscape is our truth. Staying. Confirming. Comparing and slowly seeing our once clear waters become foggy with lack of oxygen.
Then one day the rocks simply go…they roll away….and the river again begins to flow following new directions. Gathering slowly a new momentum for life. Finding a renewed sense of freedom. A new sense of purpose. Liberated from the old ways open to exploring the new.
New tributaries
New rivers
New grasslands
New ponds
New fish
A fresh journey set with the wisdom of the water and banks, the lessons of life where upon we reach the final stage of our river. We open into the wide mouth of our final destination; connection with the greater source and become one.
This my friend a journey of the river. Of life. Thank you for the ones that have been, that are and that will be and especially thank you for those that left like whispers on the wind, no note, no words just space. It gave me space and an invitation to once again find my flow