"You don't push a river it flows by itself."
- Chinese Proverb
"Become the river."
- Fritz Perls
"Perhaps the best river runners are Taoists at heart. Taoism considers someone wise
if they accommodate themselves to the rhythms of the universe."
- C. Norment
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Where Many Rivers Meet
All the water below me came from above
All the clouds living in the mountains
gave it to the rivers,
who gave it to the sea, which was their dying.
And so I float on cloud become water,
central sea surrounded by white mountains,
the water salt, once fresh,
cloud fall and stream rush , tree roots and tide bank
leading to the rivers' mouths
and the mouths of the rivers sing into the sea
the stories buried in the mountains
give out into the sea
and the sea remembers
and sings back
from the depths
where nothing is forgotten.
- David Whyte
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River
The river is my savior
She's running to the sea
And to reach her destination
is to simply cease to be
And running 'til you're nothing
Sounds a lot like being free
So "ll lay myself inside her
And I'll let her carry me.
- River J. Isbell
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Canto Paradiso 2021 : "Flow like a River"
Perchance things work out the way they are supposed to in the end
Maybe if Dante's ghost knew this he could cease his twilight meandering.
Maybe he was never attentive to the rain
Or admired the rivers as closely as he should.
Paradise is not across some finish-line
Where numbered runners gather aimlessly standing.
Desert fathers may have been the first to see
Eden is ever-present in the water.
Some say that the Divine was in the water first,
(Before any other thing was)
Her flow, her nourishment, her life giving force,
Her home to creatures who first made her their home,
Her sanctifying baptismal blessing, her welcome to
Pilgrims who bathe or swim in her
Or just witness her majesty from the shoreline.
Without her runners would never run.
Without her sacramental sustenance no thing is.
Without her Ulysses would never have inspired our own pilgrimage.
She knows her own purpose and abides without doubt
Sentient beings lose sight of her holiness
Taking her for granted while trying to control her,
There are pilgrims though who seem to have been born
With heart tattoos , reading
"You don't push a river, it flows by itself. "
They are possibly the illuminated seekers
Aware that one is always precisely where one needs to be,
Their trust , their faith in the hidden hands,
They fall freely into the generous waters of a eternal life.
Troubadours sing solemnly about the water,
Poets alliterate words of searching souls seeking salvation,
Persistent right minded teachers reach out
To any drowning student of Blake .
"Let go, let go" greek choruses are heard imploring.
"The purpose of a river is to flow
Emptying herself into a majestic ocean of mercy."
The old pre-Homeric myths promulgated
Truer stories as true that can ever be told.
Whispering wind voice wistfully whips through the trees
Sanctifying all she touches, saying for ears who chose to hear
"Rivers flow and the sea she waits.
Become the river, let the gift of the bliss carry you."
- JF Sobecki
Crossing Otter Creek
August sun warms the eddy
Swirling lonely lost feather
Drifting up and downstream
Shadows of hay bales
Guarding muddied banks
on Old Trinity Farm
Faithfully silently waiting
A final harvest
Before the snow
Hand in hand
the two wade
Stone to random stone
one breath
One beat of a heart
separating the now
from home.
- JF Sobecki (1990)
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River Songs
Let It Flow - D. Mason
River - Jason Isbell
The Ballad of Easy Rider - The Byrds
Take Me to the River - A. Green
Deep River Blues - T. Emmanuel
Bliss and Flow
Bliss - Joseph Campbell
Flow TedTalk - M. Csiksczentmihalyi
Allen McQuarrie R.I.P.
The First River Runner Who taught me
to "flow"
Lawrence Ferlinghetti R.I.P.
Thank you for giving us your words which are your rivers
AMDG
Copyright 2021 JF Sobecki LLC All Rights Reserved
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry
because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with
passion. And medicine , law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and
necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
- Dead Poets Society
