The River of Life
“The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.”
Scattered thoughts. A rambling mind. I have been out of focus all week.
Fast forward to yesterday, Saturday morning. The deadline for a blog post was fast approaching - but what to write about?
My husband brought me an oat latte in my new mug, a mermaid drifting on ocean waves. I don’t think I can blog today, I tell him. You’ll find your way, he reassured me; you always do.
I sipped my coffee and started watching a new video on Reflections of Life. The story of Robyn, who was born with a club foot. Her mother was a perfectionist. Robyn felt rejection from a young age. “My sons mean the world to me,” her mother would tell people, “But my daughter is another story.” The power of women’s stories. The deep love and/or unbearable pain of mother-daughter relationships. I could write a book about that!
In that video, another nudging of something I’ve been thinking about this week. In the video, Robyn reads the words,
“The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.”
I am the ocean, she then says.
My workshops are called Women Rowing North: Writing Our Life Stories. Some of you will be familiar with Mary Pipher’s book, Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age. I was navigating life’s currents when I began blogging in 2020. When I decided to facilitate life story workshops, I emailed Mary, seeking permission to use the name of her book. She graciously responded, “I would be honoured. I want everything I know to be shared with others”.
All week, reminders that I am rowing north along a labyrinth of rivers, but I am also a river flowing to the ocean.
On Wednesday, Johanna, a participant in one of my workshops, shared a quote by Bertrand Russel:
“Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.”
And then, yesterday morning, the words Robyn shared from Kahlil Gibran’s poem, Fear:
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
And I am left wondering, am I still flowing towards the ocean? Have I emptied into the swirling brine yet? Have I become the ocean? I'll have to give this some reflection when my befuddled mind clears.