Return to the River of Belonging
O, Heraclitus, you wisest of philosophers: “Every little thing flows,” you say. “You’ll be able to’t step into the identical river twice,” you say. But we neglect, don’t we?
And now take a look at us.
Your river flows by way of the centuries, luring us towards a world of wondrous animacy — the intuitive understanding of our native ancestors and mystics and those that paint stars and intone sighs too deep for phrases.
However our consideration has shifted away to lifeless abstraction and blood-soaked absolutes. We neglect the music of the river, the way in which it sings to us of One thing Extra. We see solely the noun “river” as if it had been a static {photograph}, a re-presentation of a sensuous, flowing vibrancy.
The misplaced river: a deprivation of creativeness. We neglect what’s actual and true and wildly alive; we miss the silky circulation of life, the sheer longing and blessed incompleteness.
Our false selves — our dyed in-the-wool selves — grasp on to issues with our tunnel imaginative and prescient and defenses: a determined want for management. So right here we’re, day after day, sharpening our knives of precision through which to slice up every little thing into sterile classes:
Both/or
Us/them
Nature/humanity
God/world
However that isn’t the river, solely impoverished items of the river, abstracted from the circulation: a research in “misplaced concreteness.” If solely we might toss all our severed concepts again into the river of wholeness, we’d witness the miracle of artistic transformation. As an alternative, we cling on to them for pricey life, not realizing that life is within the circulation, not within the items.
Maybe we’re afraid. In spite of everything, the circulation is filled with hazard and security, magnificence and terror: a research in “ands”—
rocks and water,
solidness and alter,
sameness and distinction,
religion and doubt,
transferring collectively in dialectical pressure, reaching for the broader sea of transformation.
We had been born in water. We started our life within the circulation, solely to be educated out of it. If solely we are able to return to the river inside us, round us, past us. Then,
every little thing blossoms,
every little thing widens out,
every little thing belongs —
The long run is open.
Even now, after a lot loss, we are able to nonetheless — I hope — return to the river like wild geese squawking out their aliveness, descending with function and pleasure to the luminous waters of dwelling.
Heraclitus whispers (and typically shouts) from eons previous: Return to the cosmic circulation of spaciousness, depth, awe! And above all, to a way of reverence for each other. And the sky. And the tiny goslings, furry and feathered, watched over tenderly by their elders.
There’s a river of belonging on the opposite aspect of our consideration, so vast and welcoming that it could maintain every little thing exhausting and mushy. River rocks, twigs, and even fallen timber create eddies and whirlpools of artistic chance: Unfathomable thriller chock-full of divinity.
Could we bear in mind who we’re: not remoted observers on a barren shore, however richly blessed members inside the artistic circulation, immersed within the deep tenderness of the sacred, through which “we stay and transfer and have our being.”
***
Apply: What brings you into the circulation of actuality? Music, artwork, tales, poetry, prayer, meditation? If you develop into overwhelmed by the fragmented, reductionistic, both/or world that’s transferring us in a damaging route, sit down on the piano, transfer into contemplative prayer or meditation, take a stroll with a good friend, or write a poem. Perhaps then we are able to be taught to hear deeply to somebody who has opposing views. Once we see the true nature of actuality on this manner, our consideration is drawn towards artistic prospects that may rebirth hope for our planet and for our lives.
Subsequent Submit: Miss Harbottle’s Large Mistake (And Why it Issues to Us)
