The Wild Reed: Respite By the River

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Respite By the River

Sitting on your bank, in touch with all I see
You rise and you fall,
Bringing life so perfectly
On your journey constantly
River running free, lay your wisdom down on me

River, river
Flowing in the world outside
If I knew your secret
I would turn the tide
River, river, turn around
Come on and lay your wisdom down
Lay your wisdom down.

Journey goes on
What I wouldn't do to run beside you now
Rolling on, skipping over pools of light,
Even through the darkest night
River running bright, lay your wisdom down tonight

River, river
Flowing when the world was young
Nothing new under the sun
I'm calling to a sweeter sound
Come on and lay your wisdom down
Lay your wisdom down.

– Kiki Dee and Carmelo Luggeri
"Lay Your Wisdom Down"
(from the 2013 album, A Place Where I Can Go)

Yesterday my friend Raul and I spent time by the Mississippi River, just downstream from the Franklin Ave. Bridge and in the Prospect Park neighborhood of Minneapolis.

It was a beautiful day to be out, and my time by the river served as a welcome respite in these days of pandemic, political upheaval and social strife. Indeed, my soul felt both restored and reenergized by being in this natural environment located in the heart of Minneapolis.

Above: Looking across the Mississippi to the area of shoreline where Raul and I spent time yesterday.

Following are more images from yesterday as well as other recent times I've walked from my home in south Minneapolis to this same spot on the river. These images are accompanied by an excerpt from Mary Reynolds Thompson's book, Reclaiming Wild Soul: How Earth's Landscapes Restore Us to Wholeness.

Water reminds us that we are able to show up in alternate ways and forms without abandoning our true nature. We are shape-shifters. Depending on the environment and circumstances and our own internal state, we may express as thunderous anger, icy disdain, or a bubbling brook of joy.

Contemporary social mores tend to tamp down authentic and spontaneous expression. We have been programmed to react like clockwork, calculate and calibrate our feelings, in order to comply with a mechanistic, industrialized system that values efficiency over feelings. And yet, our power lies in our passions. We can be flooded with emotion in any moment. The waters of our sacred being are not easily controlled.

. . . Living close to our hearts is not about being perfect. Water reminds us that there will be times when in order to heal, we will need to express rage, our pain, our hurt. There will be other times when we need to call upon the slow strength of glaciers, or act like the gentlest rain or an unstoppable torrent, or draw on the still, calm waters of our innermost beings.

In the words of the poet Langston Hughes, our souls have “grown deep like the rivers.” When we embrace and express the fullness of our soulfull emotions, we begin to discover the deep current of love that runs within us. Owning our passions, we connect to our unstoppable hearts. Our emotions become cleaner and clearer. They flow from deep within and in genuine response to our present circumstances.

Water, ice, steam. Our true powers of expression come from knowing the many forms of our own river.