:question: Woof, very interesting perspective...
"Myself, I think of my also in terms of water. I see on one side of my banks I have love and on the other I have fear. My waters run deep, my waters run silent. My waters form rapids after which they rest in gentle pools, yet on either side is love, the other fear."
Does your water ever freeze or boil? If so, what happens next? As it flows, are there ever any island shores to lap or flood? Pollution?
Mine is currently flowing rapidly at about 150 degrees. It is very caustic. It laps no islands and contains persistently high levels of toxicity. The love is buried in the driftwood litterin up the shores, but I wouldn't recommend touching it without gloves. There has been some remedial work being done in the deeper parts, so maybe it will be habitable sooner than later. Only time can tell.
8-)
RG
RG--- I may be wrong...I sense you sincerity and so I will stick my throat out here and hope its not slit. (trust issues and all) Going out on a limb is frightening yet that is were the sweetest fruit is...so here goes
Following the water metaphor…absolutely my water boils and it also freezes, water conforming to its environment, its container, it's natural. Conforming to circumstances as they present themselves water behaves appropriately. Can the water become as you say “caustic” or “polluted”, absolutely!
Think of a bottle of ink…one drop of water wont do much to dilute the solid color of that ink. Seemingly the ink is somewhat destined to remain…. stained, for lack of a better word. Yet with more and more droplets of water added to the bottle the ink is transformed slowly to “clarity”…dare I say, purity?
The love “buried in the driftwood” as you say probably wouldn’t be safe for touching without gloves, maybe for extended periods of time….but the driftwood will rot eventually releasing the seething…volatile, explosive, noxious fluids into it’s surroundings…And I think that eventually, inevitably all is good. On this board I have said before that I think that peace is not only possible, but inevitable.
I recently bought the DVD collection of a popular series “Planet Earth’ featured on the Discovery channel. On one of the episodes the featured “volcanic vents” on the floor of the ocean, the water is ungodly hot and toxic to many forms of life….yet, life exists. Microbes thrive in abundance. Of course these microbes are on the bottom of a food chain and as a result support scores of other species.
Water simply doesn’t care, it only goes were it’s needed (driven by gravity, temperature, chemical or by pressure) and then supports or destroys…depending on ones perspective. I hope not to have given the impression that all is paradise and that I have found some utopian manner in which to compare myself with. As peaceful as waters lapping against a tranquil shore may sound it is not always the case. Although it has happened and I have experienced peaceful moments such as this, I have also experienced, freezing, boiling, vaporizing, felt as large as an ocean and as frightened as a single droplet must be before becoming one with the enormity of that ocean. Consider the cyclic nature of water…look at your glass of water, how long has this water existed in it’s many forms? Remember several years ago they had a bottled water that was from prehistoric glaciers…I never tried it because I thought surely there had to be some dinosaur piss mixed in there somewhere…Point is that this “water” had existed for thousands of years in some shape, form or another.
The bridge I cross everyday back and forth to work is a fascinating experience for me….for more reasons than I care to count at the moment. But for sake of this conversation...I think of the travels this body of water has made. Perhaps there is a bridge near you….how long ago did the body of water cross under that bridge and how long did it take to cross under the bridge I travel on? And….do ya think it cared? Do ya think it gave any thought or consideration to it’s direction, it’s temperature, it’s salinity, it’s clarity? Think it cared that it maybe underneath the ground, or resting in a tidal pool with a stranded fish or pounding the coastline, eroding vast quantities of real estate? Probably not, it simply does what it does. Think my Aquafina gives a shit that it is helping to sustain my existence? Probably not…it’s just water.
Once in Colorado visiting a guru of sorts I set up camp just inside of the Rio Grand National Park on the west side of the Rockies in a lil place called Crestone CO. Pop.600 This was at the time of the snow melt and the gorge I had set my encampment near was raging, the sound was incredibly loud. I somehow managed to get a 5-gallon bucket filled without the force ripping me into its torrent. The water was unbelievably cold for a florida boy and it looked filthy, certainly not fit for consumption. I went about doing other things and returned to find that the sediment and shit had settled to the bottom of the bucket leaving pristine drinking water from the mountain on top.
Point is, by allowing the water to do what it does, by allowing gravity to work and by not fucking with it….the water eventually was perfect…better than my beloved Aquafina. Now if I liken that to myself…sure, there are moments of extreme turmoil and my demeanor exhibits that…..But if I allow myself time, and I don’t keep fucking with myself, stirring shit up…Its been my experience that the sediment/turmoil will settle leaving me in my pristine state…at peace. I just got to remember not to keep fucking with myself.
Om Shanti
woof
