Rivers of My Soul…

I chose this as the name for my personal space for several reasons.   First off, I’ve long been drawn to water. 

As an infant, I was baptised with it.  With water, God welcomed me into her big, bright beautiful world. 

 As a kid, we spent many days at Rifton lake in upstate New York and summers were spent on Long Beach Island in New Jersey.  I would get into the water the first chance I got and stay in until I was blue from the cold and my teeth where chattering a mile a minute!

Years later while in college, I got a job building catamarans on Whitmore Lake in Michigan and sailing alone out across the water seemed like heaven itself.  I’d do it for hours and hours every chance I got.

As I grew older I struggled with accepting my Protestant upbringing.  I found I had a stronger attraction to Taoism, partly because of it’s emphasis on the elements… most importantly perhaps, water.  And like water, I do not compete; I simply spider out and find the easiest path and follow it, yet there is nothing stronger.  Water will carve through rocks, run around steel or anything which resists it. And it does so by simply rising and through steady persistence.  Strength in gentleness.  A wonderful thing that.  I’ll share some more thoughts on that in my Passions, as I see it’s effect on my life there too.

Lastly, in trying to think of a name that would span all my interests, experiences and philosophies, another quality about water came to me.  Like my life, a river flows and is fed by smaller trickles, streams and tributaries.  It flows through all kinds of landscapes, in all manners of strength (passion).  It can be a raging white water for a while and then broaden out into an idle, drifting stretch of peacefulness in others.  It might wend it’s way thru dark forest glens and then pour out into a beautiful sun dappled meadow. 

Yes, all in all, my life is a river.  So my dear, sweet guest, pick a spot and sit by my banks and enjoy the ebb and flow of my life’s waters.

Welcome. Namaste.