When the anchors, landmarks and mileposts of life keep changing, our sense of purpose and place can feel threatened. Sometimes our view of the landscape is the key.
THE RIVER
At fourteen, all that stood between me and adventure was the lack of a boat. That hurdle disappeared when I finally convinced dad to take me and my lawn mowing money to a marina in Stevens Point. After fitting an old Johnson Seahorse to my new 12 foot pram, I disappeared down the river.
Traveling the Wisconsin River, with its sloughs and backwaters, gave me a new perspective. I hadn’t known that a different world existed, just beyond the water’s edge. Setting out was like turning a leaf and finding a parallel universe. The only boundaries were the river banks . . . and the dams to the north and south.
My engine was a five horse motor, but engines that drive rivers are more obscure. Heating and cooling cycles, conducted by the sun and the turning earth, conspire with the molten rise and fall of the land to make rivers. Their anatomy includes headwaters, tributaries, rapids, waterfalls . . . and precious lazy afternoons. Every moment of every day possesses a river that is like no other.
The flow of lessons from a river is relentless, just like the river itself. From our own headwaters, we also move through currents, following bends and narrows, filled with eddies and rapids. With rivers, the turbulence of a spring downpour is matched by a winter sleep. In our lives, we too race and creep.
In time, all rivers arrive at the mouth – a place where the river empties into a great ocean or sea, or some other body of water. From there, the river is no more. At that point, all of its history and character transcend into something larger than itself. Then, the cycle repeats.
In due course, the unceasing flow of our lives is also spent and surrendered to that greater whole. We hope for the satisfaction that comes from having been a vital part, but can only know that we are destiny driven – transcended from one life and into the next.