All rivers have a beginning. Some are hidden and rarely seen while others are popular tourist destinations.
For example, a small spring at the bottom of a hill on a farm in southwest Virginia is the most distant source of water that eventually becomes the Tennessee River. There are no signs, so you must know exactly where to look to find this river’s birthplace. In human terms, being born there would be a quiet event.
The much larger Mississippi River, however, begins as the outflow of Lake Itasca in Minnesota. There, you can actually wade across the Mississippi, and on most summer days, people will be there to see you do it. Again thinking in human terms, imagine a royal birth with many important people present to witness the happening.
From then on, every mile of every river shares similarities with how we live. Just as many smaller streams join the river to make it larger and more useful, so do education, job opportunities, and events enter our lives to make us better equipped to serve society.
Eventually, however, every river either becomes a part of an often larger river, or flows into the ocean where it quickly loses all of its identity. To again apply the human counterpart, in like manner as we become older we leave behind what we have contributed to the world.
Although normally easy riders, rivers often and sometimes with unexpected speed, respond to lengthy and heavy sieges of rain. As they swell in size and flow faster, they often cause destructive flooding and loss of life. As human beings, we also act in similar fashion.
Perhaps it’s because of this connection that people have forever been attracted to and often mesmerized by watching rivers. Whether a river is rushing through mountain canyons, easing across grass covered plains, or calmly passing through big cities, it invites people to have a closer look.
In similar fashion, people are drawn to where the ocean meets the land. Instead of the water flowing in one direction as in a river, it surges inward at high tide, then sweeps back out to sea at low tide. The water can be placid, and almost still, or turned into a caldron of activity by storms or in rare cases tsunamis caused by movement of the earth below.
Again, there is a striking similarity between what the oceans do and what happens to us. In human terms, there are stretches of days, weeks, even months when we find it easy to ride the tide of life as it eases into our existence, then retreats in similar fashion. At the same time, however, we often face sudden and powerful events that cause emotional turbulence and sometimes even loss of life.
We watch the sun as it sets in the ocean with golden rays extending outward as if reaching for heaven.
With both rivers and oceans, we see a mirrored image of ourselves as we enjoy and struggle through life. Whether gazing at a river as it flows by us or watching the sun set across an ocean’s seemingly endless water, the goodness we feel is a reward and the danger we sense helps prepare us for the worst.
The effects, however, don’t stop there. Moving water helps free us from clocks and calendars. It stimulates us and gives us the opportunity to think, sometimes to the point of making an important decision or writing an important letter, a few lines of poetry, or the first notes of a new song.
Watching the sun brighten the beginning of a new day or set in the ocean with golden shafts of light can cause us to love more intensely, think more deeply, clear the clutter from our mind to make way for new things, hope for better times.
None of this, of course, can happen unless you take advantage of the opportunity. Even if you don’t live near a river or the coast, think of a stream or a lake. If neither is available, look for a fountain. While listening to the sound of falling water, fill your mind with an imagined tree covered river bank or a high bluff along the ocean.
Both will go far in helping you unwind, embrace, and enjoy more of what life is all about.
