Silent Fluidity

Agua

There is something about the grace and serenity of water; it seems lazy and peaceful in one moment and then in the next, it shows great strength and power. Water is perseverance, patient, and adaptable; just think of the Colorado River creating the Grand Canyon. And most important of all, water is fluid… ever changing as the universe. Look up ‘fluid’ in any thesaurus and this is what you’ll find: unsolidified, watery, liquid, runny, liquefied, melted, molten, effortless, flowing, smooth, graceful, elegant, sinuous, adaptable, flexible, changeable, unstable, fluctuating, unpredictable, adjustable, shifting, indefinite. Water is everything to life and it is also timeless as we learn from the ferryman.

The River

I am only a ferryman and it is my task to take people across this river. I have taken thousands of people across and to all of them my river has been nothing but a hindrance on their journey. They have traveled for money and business, to weddings and on pilgrimages; the river has been in their way and the ferryman was there to take them quickly across the obstacle. However, amongst the thousands, there have been a few, four of five, to whom the river was not an obstacle. They have heard its voice and listened to it, and the river has become holy to them, as it has to me. “Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.
(from ‘Siddhartha’ by Hermann Hesse)

Thunder

The Lakota say to have a vision or dream of thunder is to go one’s own way regardless of others, usually the opposite means of what society deems acceptable.

The sky became more ominous as thunder and lightning now seemed to trade insults in a contest of will. The steady cascade of rain pouring in layered sheets of water on the river, strong and determined; drenching the earth causing the opaque waters to dance on the surface, as the distant clapping of thunder gave instruction and direction to the discharge of lightning in the blackening sky.

As the storm came closer and closer instinctively I ran for cover under an old oak tree, graced with huge limbs that welcomed me to its side; a trusted friend that stood erect through more history than comprehended by the human mind.

I stood in fear at the sight of this storm as my respect for the river grew exponentially. And in one brief, shining moment that seemed to last hours,  I sensed a calm emanating from within, a stillness untouched by time. I felt the wanting… of finding my own path as Gawain asserted to his fellow knights on the eve of the search for the Grail so long ago.                         

Ocean

And at the end of the day
The vast array of stars in the night sky
Give sight to the moon holding secret
The meeting of an endless ocean to an endless horizon.
It is here that one can embrace the vastness of the universe
And it is here I shall stay…                                                                                                     

*from Ocean

©jc2017-9

Photos: Pixabay