David & River Fowey
Early on in these inquiries David began exploring River’s many modes, all the way up to her moorland source. He became curious about how a river has many different characters: even when sitting at one spot River feels infinitely variable from one day to the next. But later he was mostly attending to River where he lives on the estuary, and I came to realise that an estuary is a different kind of being from the seaward flow upriver.
He realizes that in contrast, others in his inquiry groups were faithful to one spot. So he changed my practice. and spend time every week at one spot, intending to get to know River’s personality at a bend in the Fowey on the Lanhydrock estate.
Photo
David tells the group how he watches the cloud of cow parsley on an island in the River, how he is taken up by the two streams meeting, the confluence, the turbulent merging, I can get kind of lost in that. And just upstream there is an incredibly placid place, and whereas the main current flows over the sand, there is a backwate eddy there which has carved out a very deep pool.
When I go to this stretch of River, I feel enlivened yet relaxed: it’s an unusual (for me) state of well-being. and even in the short time since I began to get to know River here, something has shifted in our relationship. I don't want to say too much at this point as I've only visited four times in the last few weeks, just for an hour or so at a time. Each time its been on a blissfully sunny late afternoon in a prefect cornish summer. Every time I've been here I’ve a felt heart-love growing for this woodland bend in her waters.
He speaks directly to River:
I ask myself whether today rather than being an observer of beauty and mystery, we might talk together. The surface changes as I say that almost in response. I walk the shady path upriver to where I sit. I stand at water's edge and say ‘Dear River, it’s my intention to come here to be with you for the next moon cycle and greet you. I bring you water I collected from here a year ago. I hope you will feel it's good for me to take a little of you away with me today. These jars hold memory for me’.
A few weeks later he takes some of his men’s group to this place
I'd intended to show them where I sit. But as we arrived, and they walked on ahead, I found myself feeling increasingly reluctant to show them my sit-spot. In fact, I felt jealously protective of the little hidden river beach, so I let them walk on until we found a another place to get in the water. Two of us swam together, playing with the currents and rapids. We all experienced the purity of her water –“ something so rare now when so many rivers are being harmed and killed in this country – but not just physically pure: that River is ‘living water. I feel sure they were touched by River’s being.
I did in the end point out my sit-spot and took them down to it, but I felt awkward and somehow disrespectful….sacrilegious even: like I was breaching a precious boundary. I'd taken water from St Samson’s Well to give to River but it felt not quite right to do it with them there. Like being watched making love (not my thing). So I squeezed the bottle into the edge of the water and then sprayed water from my mouth and then cast the water to the river in the air and the sun. Looking back on how I did this, I can see it was a boundary making gesture. I let them know that man-banter was not appropriate. They got it. Walking back was very peaceful.
Next day I returned with my wife Mary and our nephew Ben, but again I didn't want to reveal my spot immediately, so I allowed them to walk on up to a further bend, to the peaceful place shown in the second video. It was evening light on this new pool which was a place I didn't know. So different did it feel in its stillness that I was filled with contentment and thankfulness for this place. And for my family.
I feel I'm falling in love with this little stretch of River. When I arrive here lately my heart opens and there’s a quality of engagement with land and water that’s almost as if through another sense.
There are two videos, one of the currents merging around the cow parsley island and one of the upstream pool. You can tell there's a backwater, that the eddy has carved a deep pond on the far bank. It has been very lovely to recollect these two encounters with you. This place has become a threshold. I don't want to say too much, I don't want to jinx it but when I go there now it's like I cross through a veil. I'm sorry. I feel clumsy trying to express this. But I hope you get some sense of the honour and respect I have for this water; that it can be like that. Thank you
David is struck by Peter’s accounts, the way he spoke of his spot with a particular sense of presence.
There was something in your voice that carried feeling to me, as well as the content. When I talk about or even when I see those images, part of me goes back there. Yes. Like I have some sort of etheric thread building up. These accounts are more than memories: they are embodied and sensuous and emotional. It’s like there’s a new sense, and emerging new sense…. I just feel I've been given the gift of a real place of refuge and sanctity.