Joy & gratitude, grief & rage
Once we give ourselves permission of see River as a centre of sentience, even a being with whom we can be in relationship, then a range of emotions rise in us. Once we experience that the ‘shimmer of life does indeed include us’, as Deborah Bird Rose put it,[i] We may be moved to joy, to gratitude, to love; and also to grief, rage, and anxiety.
These feelings can be quite overwhelming, as Kathleen reflects:
I'm feeling sort of bombarded, really bombarded with sensations and information and almost like overload from the more-than-human world outside right now. It almost feels like there's just so much input that I can't sort out all the strands of it right now. It's just too much. I feel like I need to spend some real time with. To unravel it all.
And the feelings often pointed to a wider significance, as David tells of his encounter with a group of yew trees:
When I was there in with the trees this evening, I actually got frightened. It wasn't a big fear, but I felt it's actually important for me to be here. And to feel that what I was doing may be more important than what I thought it was.
In some ways, encountering River took participants in Living Waters beyond human emotion. As Martin put it:
there was a moment in our group conversation, when we talked about anxiety in writing for the group, stripping ourselves so naked as to share our words, some of which are so intimate. And we got to this point, where we opened up for the possibility that we're really not, first and foremost, writing for the audience of these human others, but we're writing so as to really face our rivers and to bear witness to whatever is coming through. One of the takeaways is that this River gives so many of us this profound courage that is so much, truly so much more than human anxieties and egos.
Nevertheless, we can identify some clear emotional themes in participants’ experience.
Joy
Many participants in the inquiries spoke of a joyful, loving interaction with River, and often found this linked to a longer for deeper connection, to come into communion.
Luisa walks out one day along Manzanares. It has been raining, the colours are bright. She is excited to visit River, her friend.
I began to walk, and. The colors were brighter than ever, I understood the need for painters. It makes all the sense, why humans have always drawn or painted nature, It is the way to give back, to belong to such beauty.
Kathleen tells the inquiry group, ‘I just felt a lot of joy this week’. When she goes outside one morning to offer incense to Owl (see Gifts) everything is so still that it seems the trees are sleeping. She asks out loud, ‘Are you asleep?’
As I finish the question, I catch a glimpse of A-tsi-na tlu-gv (Red Cedar Juniperus virginiana) in my peripheral vision. Despite the lack of air movement, ki’s branches appear to be waving to me as if to say, “I’m awake!” The movement seems so spontaneous, I laugh out loud. I switch my attention over to ki and note that while all the trees surrounding A-tsi-na tlu-gv are motionless, ki’s branches continue to wave for a few minutes before settling down into the morning’s calm… Things have been pretty depressing and dreary around here, this round of inquiry. So that just made me laugh. It was hilarious. So it was a bit of a it was a nice sort of comic relief.
More on Kathleen’s story and A-tsi-na tlu-gv
Gratitude
As we wrote in the posts on Gifts, in bringing offerings to River, we are freely reciprocating all that River gives to us. And quite often feelings of gratitude arise quite spontaneously. David sits by River in the gathering dark:
The sound of the stream was amazingly strong as darkness fell around me reminding me that the flow continues day and night. From this thought I realised that I had been breathing for so many years, day and night and my heart had kept beating. I thanked the world for letting me be part of it.
As Peter stands on the banks Robin comes close to his feet and hops around him. Is this Robin just being Robin, or has come to tell me something? And then it doesn’t matter: he feels a surge of gratitude, a sense of beauty and belongingness in place, that arises without forethought.
Once I get over my expectation that 'something might happen' – even though I've told myself that I'm not expecting anything to happen, that I'm just here in presence – once I get over that I feel a sudden rush of extraordinary… what is it, pleasure? or maybe it's gratitude? or maybe is just simply being here?
And gratitude often turns to feelings of love, as Dimity tells us
I am finding much beauty in sitting and listening to the fullness in the air, the water over stones, the plop of the fish (which I still haven’t seen), the bird calls and laughter, the wind singing through the new shape of the riverbank after the 2022 flood, and the water not seeming to notice. Here there is peace.
Grief and Rage
And yet, the shadow side of the joy and sense of connection is often a deep sense of grief at the damage being caused by human actions in the world. The early days of the Sentient River group were very focussed on grief, distress and guilt following Kathleen’s account of crushing Turtle. Andrea catches the tone the conversations:
I'm just deeply overwhelmed with all of this… it’s been us, always us [doing the damage]. I don't know if there's enough goodness in us anymore. I just don't know. So that's a very dark and awful I apologise… that's not really where I would want to be.
Luisa, on a bridge across Manzanares, sees a man smoking. Somehow she knows he will toss his cigarette into the water, and when he does, she uncharacteristically accosts him. “Why did you throw that cigar to the river?” she asks with a nervous and angry voice. The encounter leaves her shaken and upset, grieving for our carelessness. As her inquiry group reflects on her experience, it seems evident that Luisa is tapping into a wider grief about loss and damage to global ecosystems
At the same time, Ezekiel is deeply disturbed by the hunters that he comes across in the woods, with their rifles and camouflage jackets:
What is it about this hunting business that I find so troublesome? It’s the utter lack of consideration for the interiority of the prey, the sport of it, the lack of reverence. I'm willing to propose that the world just is sacred, and that we can choose to participate, to choose to experience that or to just sort of glide about as though it's not there.
Ezekiel’s grief is further reflected in his poem
No words. Only apologies and fears.
Apologies to River and Sky and Great-grandchildren and Ancestors.
Fears for my Children, and their Children, and their Children.
This terrible beauty is your inheritance.
This “trash” is here, in your bodies.
This River is here, in your bodies.
A complex of emotions
Despite the challenges of grief and anxiety, for most participants the engagement with River was deeply rewarding. Just as the tree moving makes Kathleen laugh out loud, David tells us how much fun he is having:
So it was it was very moving for me and I loved it. I really enjoyed myself. I enjoyed sitting there… and it got dark and I had the stupid torch on my head and it kept suddenly deciding to flash which wasn't what it was meant to do at all. So I was pressing buttons at the same time as trying to organise myself on a deeper level. That was fun. I really, really loved the opportunity to do that.
And Peter exclaims his appreciation to River
I say that we should love it; and then I say I do love it, I love you, love you. I love this weather. I love this darkness. I love the challenge that you set us for being here. I love that I have to challenge myself to get out of that warm bed, how I have to step out otherwise I wouldn't see all this. I wouldn't hear the owl or know there was an owl.
And Dave describes feelings of wonder, awe, and gratitude as he meditates from his hut overlooking the Fowey estuary
I’m looking south east into a dazzling sunsplash path across the water as the tide falls. A sudden blackbird explodes along the foreshore dopplering his alarm call… Every time I open my eyes River is different: three solitary pools of light move slowly to the sea, the mid-stream slightly faster than the shallows… and now there is a golden pool near each bank, darkness in midstream. As I sink into what’s there, I'm astonished by the light-pools’ sparkling boundaries dancing starlike. As the wind freshens, starbursts sparkle around it. Eyes close…afterimages the colour of the luminous paint roll behind my eyelids,. I recall the words of a chant ‘Let my heart reflect thy light Lord as a moon reflects the light of the sun in love. Always in love…’
Enough already! Close the altar. I bow to River and sing a made-up thankful song of sky and sun and air and water.
[i] Rose, D. B. (2017). Shimmer: When all you love is being trashed. In A. Tsing, H. Swanson, E. Gan, & N. Bubandt (Eds.), Arts of living on a damaged planet (pp. 51-63): University of Minnesota Press,p.61.