WATER’S EDGE
Journal Entry from Summer 2021:
(Rivers wash me clean, heal my bones, ease my mind, and let my heart flow as freely as your waters)
Tired and grimy, I removed sore feet from my boots, peeled dirt stained clothes off my back, and slowly sat down next to the stream. Like a child, I hugged my legs and rested my chin on my knees. I listened to the water speak its native tongue amongst the rocks while the cool autumn breeze spoke another in the trees. I let my eyes gaze into the purest of water - water that once rested in the mountains standing tall around me and now moved gracefully through the canyon. I observed the prismatic-like stones dance in the river bed; stones that had been polished and shaped over the ages.
I easily caught my reflection in the clarity of a slow churning eddy - a reminder that I was starting to look like the dirt I had been walking on - and realized my face wore a new tone. My eyes glistened with contentedness and gratitude; my brows un-furrowed a bit more and my lips held back a smile. The terrain around me had left new markings on my body and formed new callouses, each telling a story of the paths I had wandered and the trees I had foraged through.
Unfolding from my childlike position the cold met my bare skin before the water did. With care and caution I gingerly let my right foot feel the first step into the current, followed by my left until my feet joined the stones in their dancing. Slowly letting my body relax, I took a deep breath and sank beneath the surface holding onto whatever oxygen that hadn’t already been taken from the initial shock of the cold. I floated there, letting the stream move me as it pleased while waiting, listening for my heart rate to slow before finding my face back to the surface.
Finding a river or a stream at days end become daily routine, a ritual rather. To sit on the waters edge was a means of restoration to the mind as a whole. To join in its state of flow was somewhat of rejuvenation to the body. Put together and it feels as if more than dirt, sweat and dried blood washed down stream in those moments, and the soul was left feeling a little lighter.
