Dreaming the River
The cold water surrounds my entire body, rushing from my head down my front, back and sides and off the ends of my floating toes. The force of the river wants to take me downstream, four hands I trust, hold me in place. The air in my lungs wants to bring me up to the surface. The same four hands hold my chest down, a few inches under the threshold where water meets sky.
I am suspended. Not breathing. Time has stopped.
It's dark.
The only thing I know for sure is which way is up. Every instinct in my body wants me to go up, to get my head out the water.
Yet, I put myself here. I asked these two dear friends to tip me backwards, head first and hold me under the river.
I'm caught in the paradox of trying to surrender.
Quietly soothing my lizard brain, I'm encouraging it to relax into this ridiculous situation. I know that the more fear I feel the more oxygen I'll burn and the more quickly I've have to surface. The calmer I can be, the more time I have to remember myself as water.
I sense the beginning of the sensation of wanting to exhale, this tells me my time in this timeless state is running out. Both seem true.
Some part of me finally lets go. My awareness expands away from my immediate bodily survival into the movement of this body of water. I fill the banks as I roll endlessly downwards, swelling into the rocks and cracks of the earth, pulling with me anything not firmly rooted.
My inflated consciousness is brought back to earth with the overwhelming desire to empty my lungs. I push my body forward and feel the support of my sisters as they tip me up allowing my head to break through the threshold into air. I surface as a mammoth whale, blowing into the night.
The subsequent inhale brings in sweet expansion again as my body relaxes and I remember why I love being alive so much. What an honor it is to breathe. To stand here in this clear, mountain, water, surrounded by ones who know me well, deepened by our mutual trust.
This river keeps rushing, as if nothing ever happened. I offer a prayer of gratitude as the water streams, endlessly downwards, from my tangled hair.
To what, dear one, in your life, are you trying to surrender?
Kat- There's definitely something about rivers that is ancestral and precious. I appreciate this reminder through your piece. Hope you're well this week. Cheers, -Thalia
Your vivid description of being submerged in the river, both physically and metaphorically, really draws the reader into the experience. The way you capture the tension between fear and surrender and the ultimate sense of release and gratitude is powerful and moving—excellent, emotive writing.