Letting the River Return

Today, Richard and I were driving back from my dental appointment and we got to talking about maturity, and how we evolve as people over time. He asked me if it seemed like I had been making a sort of accelerated leap forward in the past few months, if it seemed like I was rushing through several stages of my personal evolution all at once.

The first thing that came to my mind was what I have been told many times in drug and alcohol treatment: that we stop maturing when we start using drugs. I can’t tell you how many therapists have told me something along the lines of, “you are emotionally stuck at the point in your life when you started using”.

I think that this is somewhat true. I know that, for me, a part of me has been stuck back there in my junior year of college. I didn’t want responsibility, I didn’t have many boundaries, I was undeniably selfish, I had a certain amount of delusions of grandeur; I was a somewhat typical undergraduate student. However, I felt like there was something about me that was wrong. I felt physical and emotional pain, and to try and dull it, I started to take drugs, and very quickly they became my life. Everything else fell by the wayside. I did, truly, become stuck.

Now, as we were talking, I was trying to explain to Richard what things were like for me now, feeling like I have finally come, “unstuck”.

The image that came almost immediately to my mind was that of a deep, wide river. Let’s say you were to dam that river. Unless you have a large depression in which to collect the excess water, what will happen is that you will divert the river’s course. The water will turn, as best it can, and find a new path down toward the sea. Now, let’s say that you were to destroy that dam. What would happen? Well, first, there would be a surge of water, back down the old, dry riverbed. Then, slowly, the river would return to its old course, and after a time, no sign of the dam or the river’s old path would exist.

To me, that image demonstrates very clearly what things feel like for me at this point in my life. If the direction of my life is the direction of the river, and my addiction is the dam, I feel as if I have finally pulled down most of the dam, and there has been a surge of energy inside me, directing me back onto the course I was meant to be on. And after some more time has gone by, the evidence of that addiction, the destructive path that the river created when it had to go around that dam, will finally be erased. Nature will reclaim that dead, dry path that leads nowhere, and the water of life will return to the course it was always meant to follow.

I think that this image so clearly speaks for me that I really don’t need to go on and on about it. I think that I can just leave you with that image in your minds, and with the question: what does the dam symbolize in your life? Do you struggle with an addiction, like I do? Maybe it is a destructive relationship, or a job that doesn’t allow you to utilize your skills and strengths. Perhaps it is depression, or illness. That dam could be anything, anything at all. And if you aren’t careful and that dam gets big enough it could force the river of your life down a path it isn’t meant to follow. If you can recognize the dam in your life before it gets too big, perhaps you won’t have to go through the process I am going through now, having to tear that dam down piece by piece.

I wish you peace and a restful sleep, and I wish you clarity and insight as you explore what in your life might be altering the flow.

Thank you for reading,

-Nathan

Becoming the River

Alright, in case you didn’t see the “placeholder” post I put up last night, I am actually posting this in the morning, the day after I wrote it. I’m using the neighbors internet. They live a few hundred yards away and they have a nice porch where I am sitting and typing. But I wrote the post below last night. So enjoy! 

Just a little while ago, I was sitting on the lowest landing of a set of wooden stairs perched precariously on the edge of a tall embankment amid the pines, firs, beech, and oaks. Below where I sat was the rocky, mossy edge of the west fork of the Washougal River. I was seated on my yoga mat on the flat landing just above the rushing water. I was meditating. When I closed my eyes the sound of the river seemed to flow over me. For a time, I felt simultaneously engulfed and filled up by the water. It was as if the river and I had momentarily attempted to share the same space. With my eyes closed, sitting just a yard or two away, there was no separation: I was the river, the river was me.

Just another example of how intimately we are connected with the things around us. Not just other human beings, but the air, the rocks, the trees, and the water.

My hope is that the more I practice my mindful meditations the easier it will become for me to enter the somewhat trance-like state in which I truly feel the connection between myself and my surroundings. And with time, I believe I will be able to interact with things that are not in my immediate vicinity but perhaps miles away.

But….I’ve already posted a ton of stuff about meditation. I had to tell you about my experience this evening, but the rest of this post is going to be brief and to the point. You see, at the River House (where I currently sit) there is no internet. So after writing this offline, I must walk down a hundred yards or so and sit outside in order to borrow the internet connection from one of the neighbors. And that isn’t easy. And it must be done before it starts getting dark. In other words, soon.

But I do have one thing to tell you about. Last night in my post Travel Anxiety, I explained to you the reasoning behind the nervousness and worry I was feeling. Well, some of my fears were confirmed today when I found out that I had misunderstood how long we would be staying here, and only prepared and packed for the weekend when we might indeed be staying as late as Wednesday. I found that out this afternoon just before we were going to leave, and I had not really packed properly, moreover, some of my respiratory meds will need refilling before Wednesday. In other words, it suddenly seemed like the anxiety I had been feeling was justified.

But, here’s where my current practices step in: because of my anxiety I had spent this morning’s meditation focusing on slowing down. I focused on slowing my thoughts, my actions, and, especially, the time between a stimulus and my reaction. Somehow, I knew that would be important. So when I found out that I had no idea how long we would be out of town, instead of freaking out and running around unpacking and repacking and getting angry because I, “should have been told….blah blah blah”, instead of all that, I just took a few deep breaths, and said, “Oh well. We’ll figure it out”.

I would not have been able to do that if I had not been for my meditation today and last night. Of course, the other new routines I have been practicing probably didn’t hurt either (e.g. Tai Chi, healthy eating, other exercise, drinking enough water, and taking all my medications) because they all affect my base level of stress and help keep me in a calmer state so that when change occurs I can flow with the change but not lose myself in it.

That is what I was able to do today, thanks to all the support from my family, friends, and of course, you!

Thank you all, and expect the next few posts to be somewhat brief. If, for some reason, the internet does not work and I cannot post, I will have a backlog of posts which I will publish on my return.

-Nathan

Related articles

• What’s the deal with meditation? (ask.metafilter.com)
• Water Meditation (harikrishnamurthy.wordpress.com)