For most of my adult life I have been in conversation with this river. She has flowed within the cells of my being long before then. You see, my grandmother had picnics here when she was a girl and my father used to come fish on the shoals long before I was even a thought carried in the winds of time.
This river calls to me. She invites me to her waters in my thoughts and in my dreams. She has done this since we first met in physical form when I was just a young mother - a budding adult. Even then the stories she wove for me offered me guidance, though my listening heart could only hear bits of pieces of her wisdom then.
Over the years of my adulthood I have visited her often. Each time I visit with her she shares with me tales of impermanence, of flow, of light and of darkness. I love her more with each visit.
Sometimes I sit upon her shores. Sometimes I sit on the rocks that stand above her waters where she roars fiercely. Sometimes I bathe where bubbles of air drift over her reflective surface effortlessly. I watch her powerfully run over the rocks slowly wearing away the stories they hold of yesterday. In some places she runs spread out from shore to shore in her wide expanse flowing slowly and easily - here she whispers tales of expansiveness.
This elder whose very molecules come from here and from there and everywhere willingly shares the myths of all the lives and all the worlds she has seen and held.
This river has shaped me like she shapes the shores to which she is bound. She has sat with me, witnessed me, and journeyed with me through this life thus far in all my emotions and in loving ceremony.
She is my ancestor, my elder, my sister, my friend.
