“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.” Norman Maclean

Hmmm, is it just me? I am the only one who has these little post-it notes of memory stuck in my mind from years or even decades ago? They are small, gift-wrapped minutia of life which I periodically take out and examine like an old photograph.

Here’s one – a hazy, blurred-at-the-edges, childhood memory of going fishing one night on the Grand River. There were five of us – my father and grandfather, my uncle and his son, and I. Three generations linked by the rising anticipation of that tug on the line and the thrill of the catch.

But what was special about this particular outing was that we went after dark. We picked our way across stepping-stone rocks to a small island just off the shoreline. One by one we cast our lines into the silent, black water of the Grand.

You need to know that the Grand River at Caledonia is an impressive sight in the daylight. A couple of football fields wide, knee shallow in some places and drowning deep in others. But after dark it took on a different character – mysterious and mystical with a spine tingling grace and the echo of hundreds of years of history.

Honestly I don’t remember if we caught anything. On that particular occasion, it didn’t seem to matter. Being there in the nighttime embrace of the Grand was all I needed.

Why did this unremarkable event grow to be a gemstone in my memory?

Could it be that rivers are a part of our collective unconscious? Or, perhaps, an icon in our psychic mythology?  I believe that in them we sense a metaphor for the ebb and flow, the rise and fall, the pulse and the pause of life itself.

 “Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things? Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

A river will always take you somewhere but is never in a hurry to get you there. It winds and meanders through the landscape with a mind quite its own.

Rivers teach us to slow down and trust the current. They remind us that it is not the destination that matters but rather what you learn on the journey.

I seldom see the Grand River these days. But when I do come upon it I am transported back to that precocious night when the river whispered to me: Be still. Be silent. I was here before you were conceived. I will be here after you are dust. I am eternal. I am unchanging. I am the River.

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”  Winnie the Pooh

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog. Visit www.smashwords.com to download a free preview of the e-book version.

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The helter-skelter world, which we launch ourselves bravely into each day, exacts a hefty toll. We need a refuge we can escape to where we can rest and rejuvenate our wounded soul.

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.  Ralph Waldo Emerson: American essayist, philosopher, and poet

In a world that charges madly on in a race that never seems to end, I need nature’s slow dance of serenity. The playful, elegant fluttering of golden wings over a meadow splashed with a palette of wildflowers.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.  Blaise Pascal: French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher

In a constantly shape-shifting world where what was truth yesterday is irrelevant today, I need nature’s unassuming constancy. The teeming life of a cattail marsh where dragonflies waltz to the bullfrog’s symphony.

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. Rabindranath Tagore: Bengali poet, novelist, musician, and playwright

In a locked down world in which we need keys, pass cards and fobs to get in and sometimes even to get out, I need nature’s open arms. The Cool Hollow Trail that always sighs its welcome beneath a canopy of willows.

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story. Linda Hogan: Native American poet, storyteller, academic, playwright, novelist

In a world where the din and clamour of machines, discontent and greed assaults my senses, I need nature’s noble peace and majesty. The slow grace of the seasons and the effortless exuberance of swallows in flights of fancy.

Nature is my living metaphor of serenity, constancy, open arms and the peace that surpasses all expression. Like a moth to a flame, I return to it again and again. I never tire of it nor it of me.

I long for spring and another walk through Cool Hollow.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel”. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar.

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