She Is. Like A River.

Experiencing Her while rafting the Salmon River, during the Holy Week of the Feminine Divine, July 22, 2019.

Some say,
Yes, she is there.
Protected
Silent
Fertile
Giving life only
In confinement.
Man-made confinement.
Un-named.
You must respect her.
Do not name her or speak of her.
Keep her
Protected
Silent
Confined.

I say,
She is.
Like a river
Flowing through the deep chasms,
Forming the canyons.
When all, even the air, is still,
Quiet.
She moves.
Always.
She is not silent.
Listen for the rippling, murmuring, roaring, crashing, pounding, calling, singing, dripping, churning.

On the raft, in the calm,
I hear Her.
The vibrations come up through my feet
As the rough approaches…
thump, thump…
thump-thump.
thump, Thump.
Thump, Thump.
Thump, Thump, Thump THUMP.
Wake up.
Listen.
There are things happening under the surface.
Look deep.
Look ahead.
She tells me the line to follow.
To move through the tearing wound.
When I resist
And fall,
She is there,
Still,
She carries me through.
She baptizes me,
Buries me in the water,
To birth me into new life,
Again and again.
She is deep and close.
Loud, rough, violent, calm, gentle, smooth, textured, powerful.
She is all color.
All sound.
All time.
And only now.
She is fluid.
Her path is alive, and Her own.
It shifts, moves, and belongs to me, the moment I look.
Then it breathes for another.
She is new each moment, to each being.
Nothing can confine her.
She is sensual.
Her curves, swells, ripples, eddies, falls, soft sand, hard rocks, swirling currents that pull, and hold me,
Call on all my senses –
See, hear, smell, taste, touch –
Feel her around me.
I catch my breath.

She says.
Breathe deeper.
Here is life.
Breathe it all in.
Here is air that has filled every life.
Here is water that is shared by all.
Here is the fruit, the knowledge, the wisdom.
She says.
Live deeper, with the opposition.
She says.
Ask. And ask again.
Will I love the deep breath more because, for a moment, I couldn’t breathe?
Will I love the warm wind more because I know the wet cold?
Will I love what is, because I mourn the loss of what was, and is gone?
Will I love all, because anything else is not love?
Because anything else is not You?
I am invited, held up, consumed, carried,
By Her…
She does not fix, or condemn, or agree with, or compel, or explain.
She is here, washing around me,
Teaching me life,
Just because I exist.
Because She sees me.

She says,
I am with you.
In the wound,
In the healing,
In the rough,
In the calm.
Listen for me.
Look for me.
Be this for each other.
See Me in each other.
You.
All…
Are a part of every drop.
Stone, grain, sound.
Your breathing is the breathing of all.
Breathe deep.
Let the river take you home.