Life is always changing; we are always changing. We live in a river of change, and a river of change lives within us. Every day we’re given a choice: We can relax and float in the direction that the water flows, or we can swim hard against it. If we go with the river, the energy of a thousand mountain streams will be with us, filling our hearts with courage and enthusiasm. If we resist the river, we will feel rankled and tired as we tread water, stuck in the same place. “I’ve known rivers,” writes Langston Hughes. “I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
Am I going to flow with my river nature today, or am I going to swim against it? This is what I ask myself when I get out of bed each morning. And when I go to sleep, I apologize to the river gods for any hard strokes I made against the current, and for splashing about like a drowning person. I pray that tomorrow I may once again know the pleasure of following my soul downstream, because, I’ve known rivers — and once you’ve known rivers — once you’ve stretched out on the dark waters, trusting the river gods, going in the direction of life even if it is headfirst toward the rapids, you want to taste that water again; you want your soul to grow deep like the rivers again.
Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open
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