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Hi, I'm Sophy ~ your editor for this edition of the Spiritual Newsletter. This week I'll share about the spiritual lessons I learned from a beautiful river in southeastern Utah.
The Rev. Scotty McLennan, author of the book Finding Your Religion, compares humanity's innate need for spiritual searching to climbing a mountain. In his view, we are all endeavoring to climb the same figurative mountain in our search for the divine, we just may take different ways to get there. In other words, there is one "God," but many paths. I honor whatever path or paths you have chosen to climb that mountain in your quest for the Sacred.  |
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What I Learned From the River
Last month I talked about finding the sacred in everyday life, including nature, and several months ago I talked about the spiritual significance of water. This month I'll combine those two themes to share what I learned spiritually from a river rafting trip in Utah I took last month. And my challenge to you is to write about your own "wilderness" experience, whatever it is (river or no river), and connect it with the Sacred.
Just three weeks ago, in mid May, I was floating down the Green River through beautiful Labyrinth Canyon with my husband and sister on a five-day rafting trip. We timed it just right, missing bad weather on the front and back ends of our trip, enjoying hot, beautiful days with magnificent red canyon walls rising up all around us to meet the deep blue sky and puffy white clouds, and sleeping under thousands of stars each night.
Actually going on this trip meant facing some of my biggest fears, among them being in total wilderness for several days with no civilization or cell phone service to save us if one of us got seriously ill or injured; having to face my own physical limitations, depending on others for help in a variety of ways and thus not being able to be in control; and being without modern amenities such as the wonder of plumbing and porcelain.  But I faced my fears and uncertainties and was excited to step onto our raft and start our adventure late on a hot Friday morning.
I learned a lot on this trip. Much of what I learned relates to both literal and metaphorical lessons from the river. It seems fitting that my first multi-day river trip occurred in Labyrinth Canyon, a beautiful stretch of the Green River just above Canyonlands National Park, near Moab, Utah. Walking along the turnings of a Prayer Labyrinth offers spiritual opportunities for contemplation and meditation of the sacred as one loses track of self, direction, and the outside world, thus quieting the mind and resulting in a relaxed mental attitude, free of the usual internal dialog and frustrations. Our canyon, named aptly Labyrinth for all of its twists and turns as it makes its way to join the Colorado River, offered the same spiritual opportunity for contemplation and meditation of the sacred, resulting in an amazing sense of relaxation and peace. In addition, our stretch of the river was particularly calm, with no rapids, so it was easy for the most part to sit back, relax, turn off my internal voices, and enjoy the ride.
Even though the river was calm, it was running fast and strong, and one thing I learned was that you can't fight the river and your better off not trying, as you're certain to lose and will only exhaust yourself in the process. Much more effective is to learn to work with the river, making small adjustments as infrequently as necessary to keep yourself going with the flow. As someone who tends to like to be in control of things, prior to this trip I aspired to be the sort of person who would be able to just sit in the boat and go with the flow, enjoying where the current would take us, and I hoped this trip would help me achieve that aspiration. But what I learned as well is how important those small corrections are. Sure, sometimes going with the flow is nice, and helps you be able to slow down and see the beauty and wonder all around you. But if you don't pay attention to where the river is taking you and drop your oar in the water to steer once in a while, that flow might smack your head right into a large rock wall, like it almost did to my sister on our first day! So, as with most things, it's about balance -- while it's fine to relax and go with the flow much of the time, it also helps to keep one eye on and one oar in the river, just in case.
Another thing I learned was something I already knew but had reinforced powerfully for me, and that is that I was reminded to respect water on two important levels. Not long before we took off on our trip, a terrible cyclone hit Myanmar, killing tens of thousands of people, the devastation of which we still don't know completely almost a month later. We were heartbroken by the tragedy as well as awed once again by the power of water, careful to keep that in mind on our trip. The Green River was running high and fast due to a large winter snowfall that was beginning to melt off. At the same time, there were heavy rains in the area, causing flooding of rivers all over Utah, which you may have heard about. We were safe and fine, but others around the state were in peril, and we were conscious and careful about where we camped in relation to being high enough off the river, never in a dry wash in the canyon in case of flash flooding. So we learned to respect it in that way.
And we learned to respect the water in another way, as the source of all life. It is so precious and necessary to life that people are fighting over it all over the world. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan said, in 2002, "Fierce national competition over water resources has prompted fears that water issues contain the seeds of violent conflict." Sadly, those words have proven true in a short time. Thus water deserves our respect for its innate value as the lifeblood of civilization and, while on the river I learned to value water in this way. Back home I always have enough water to drink, wash my clothes, and water the lawn. But on this trip, the only water we had to live on was the water we were able to carry with us. Being in the desert, we had to make sure we brought enough for us to drink, since the river water was undrinkable. Because of this we were very careful with our water - making sure to drink enough to stay hydrated, while not wasting any washing dishes or bathing. We used the river water for that, instead of our precious, limited cargo. One couple we met on the river hadn't brought, and we ended up sharing some with them. It was like gold - a truly precious commodity, and we treated it as such. Perhaps the good news from that lesson can be that even after our return to civilization, we become more conscious of water conservation than ever before.
The last thing I'll share with you, though I learned many more lessons from the river than just the ones I'm mentioning, has to do with facing your fears with confidence. As I shared earlier this year, I spent much time letting my fears control my life and keep me from doing some things that would have been pretty amazing. But I intentionally faced the fear about this river trip, of being out in the middle of nowhere for days, relying on my husband, sister, and myself for survival, out of control, miles from the internet, cell service, and porcelain flush toilets. And what I learned from facing those fears and meeting them head on is perhaps the most valuable lesson I took from the river, and that is that most of our fears really don't ever turn out to be as scary or awful as we expect or imagine them to be. And that was certainly the case for me on this trip as none of the things I was most worried about amounted to much of anything.
We plan to return to Utah next Spring, probably to a new river, perhaps the San Juan. But I hope we'll return to the Green someday because I understand better than ever what Heraclitus meant when he said that it is impossible to step into the same river twice. The Green River will be different the next time I set my boat upon it, as will I. In closing, I share these beautiful words from Edward Abbey, a longtime resident of southern Utah, and a frequent guest on the Green and Colorado rivers:
Benedicto:
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing.
May your rivers flow without end,
meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets'
towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl,
Through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone,
and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm
where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs,
where deer walk across the white sand beaches,
where storms come and go
as lightning clangs upon the high crags,
where something strange and more beautiful
and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams
waits for you--
beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.
Edward Abbey, Earth Prayers from Around the World
Until next time! Sophy |
Below you'll find a few offerings from other WDC members about their own spiritual experiences with rivers. Please let the folks know if you read their piece by leaving a thoughtful comment or review.
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| |  | River of Life (E)
Relating to nature, i wrote this poem as a project for school but i think it's much more
#1240660 by Kara  |
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Now for a couple of comments about my May newsletter about finding the sacred in everyday life:
From Katya the Poet 
Another great newsletter, gal! Today, I was reading the signs of my life--literally reading a Richard Russo short story, an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem, and my MSN horoscope--which all came together in a cool way, and then I read your newsletter, yet another sign, about signs....of the sacred! Wooee. My mind is blown!
Ain't synchronicity grand? 
     
From Joy 
Excellent newsletter, Sophy.
I couldn't agree more. Sacred is poetic and is everywhere.
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it!
Please keep your comments and suggestions coming, they are greatly appreciated! And on behalf of myself and the other wonderful Spiritual Newsletter Editors, Puditat larryp kittiara -- thanks for reading this newsletter!
Until next time! Sophy |
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Spiritual: June 04, 2008 Issue [#2427]
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