I am on a raft in a river going through a jungle. We’re heading to the sea. I can’t tell what’s behind the next curve, if the water will go faster or slower. If there are more rivers or if the pace remains the same. All I know is that I am, in the water.
Sometimes I want to go faster, and then I actually find it holding me back. The faster I want, the slower I move. And sometimes when I desire to go slower, the water hurries me faster.
Other boats come on my path from separate rivers. Some surfboards, small motorboats and others are like gigantic castles with protection all over. I overpass these bigger boats quickly, no matter the engines they carry. They are too heavy for the water to be carried by the river.
Some boats I see together, others collide, with people drowning or just able to swim. Others again find new boats, abandoning ship, loosing identity and their original path. How will they make it to the sea?
I feel a boat close to me, bumping from the back. I try slowing down but the water lets me go, and faster I flow.
We pull up ropes and bind ourselves together. Why I don’t know. For safety it is not. As the water lets us go faster, a waterfall approaches and I can’t avoid to jump: I have to get off my raft!
Looking for cover, I swim closer to the shore, holding on to branches which sometimes slap my face and I climb over slippery rocks that make me fall when I want to get up. A wave comes in and the water dumps me into a swamp, where mud is all over and everything gets stuck.
But then I understand this is where I am to be. That this is part of the path that sets me free. That a pause is only a different movement, and a stop equally an action. And a new current comes in, bringing me into the stream.
I find my raft, together we go through showers of rain, into mist, and later when it all clears I notice a boat in front, hindering some of my sight. But I also notice we are yet again floating towards the sea.
A bird lands on my shoulder and whispers: “Go slow, don’t hurry yourself down. The sea is yet far, and is not where you are supposed to be. Be free and feel your raft as if you were one. Let yourself float, enjoy the streams and sail towards the sea”.
For a second there I wish for wings to fly me over the sea, just like the bird. What? Am I really so much enslaved to being free? And I find the answer enclosed within the question, and I just let myself and the river be.
So is this a dream, or a zen story or what?
i appreciate that you have started writing on my blog. And so i have come over here to try to figure out something interesting and useful to say on yours. Only to be thwarted by the wild stuff you are posting.
So i will stay tuned, waiting to pounce.
Great “whatever” you’ve written here Robin.
I love the part about branches slapping you in the face, the part about the mud being just another “where you’re meant to be,” the boat you’re connected to obscuring your view somewhat – very true. And the bird, oh the things told by that little bird… and that powerful answer within the question. Enslaved to being free – now that’s an intriguing idea. I guess one has to keep perspective, keep questioning.
Anyway, I see your mind in your words and I love it,
Charlie
I feel peaceful now, having read that. Thank you, Robin, I’ll cherish it. And knowing that it was you who wrote it, it seems to make total sense.
I really hope to see you again sometime.
Love