The River

I don't know if I can imagine my life without this river.  It is as though no matter how many times the world is destroyed-(and by the world I mean their worlds, our world, my world- as if there were ever any separation)- there is something that flows on and on through it, recreating life. And by this river I mean all of it- not just the pretty hilltops and the mystical woods and the sailboat harbors.  I mean the boys who are shot on the streets of Newburgh. I mean the ones who are learning to shoot behind the towering gray walls of West Point.  I mean the bridges and the tracks too many have tossed away their lives on.  I mean the boardrooms and the bedrooms, the hospitals and the bars, the churches- and the disastrous house.

I dreamed of walking beside the river. There was a sacred rock in my dream, and a gathering of people in an adobe castle. The next day in real life there was a pancake breakfast with community in Beacon, music and children in Newburgh, and a prayer circle in Rock Tavern.  Sacred space.  Safe space.  

I woke from the dreamstate knowing- the healing of this world and your own are interconnected.  I woke from the dream knowing I must heal myself.  And today I knew again if my own life is to be of service, there must be inner restoration.  And then, oh then, imagine....

You are holding a lot- but are you held?  Can a river create space? And who holds you?  I hear the questions they ask though I have closed my eyes. I know only that I am held.   I cannot answer.  But there is a river... a blue blue river reflected, surrounding me.  I cannot answer, though I long to say:  this is why I have come. This is why I am here now- to know only this greatest love and be held, to know only this river that holds me, the river that holds the life.