The Great River of Life - A Reflection
Last weekend I attended a collegial retreat at Woodberry Crossing in Parkton, MD. We were a group of female identifying folx, ranging in age from 45 - 82. The overarching intention of the gathering was to get to know one another better, share life giving practices, break bread together and replenish the well of our being.
We wandered the land. We met Crouton the goat and Ned the elder donkey. We fed the fire with logs, dried herbs and stories. Communed with bare trees. Laid down our burdens and opened our hearts.
During free time we sat around the fire. We talked. We listened. We shared wounds and the stories that have grown up around the wounds. Each of us admitting that these struggles, that consume so much of our precious energy, have been with us for decades. Decades. The named areas of suffering were around nourishment, addiction, body image, self doubt, self criticism and enough-ness. We shed tears. Had insights. Ate dark chocolate cake. And we saw ourselves in one another.
It is a tremendous privilege - of time, of resources, of life - to consciously choose to be in a process of healing.
On Saturday evening, Kathryn McGinty, healer, energy worker and bearer of kindness, led us in a meditation. She began by bringing us into a deep state of awareness. Once in that space, Kathryn asked us to think of behaviors or patterns that we wish to be free from. She gently reminded us to have compassion for ourselves. Then, she asked us to think of those that we are in life with who have similar patterns. Again, compassion. Always compassion.
As the meditation progressed, Kathryn invited us to see and feel ourselves stuck in the familiar yet unkind rapids of the river. To feel ourselves flailing and fighting to get away from the undertow.
For several minutes we were invited to experience ourselves in the various parts of the cycle of suffering. In the rapids. Floating on the surface. Climbing out of the river. And to feel ourselves steadied, standing on the shore. Grounded. Breathing easily.
The river symbolizes our shared human experience of suffering and the universal wish to be free, safe & happy. As we practice compassion for ourselves and others and grow in awareness of suffering, we may come to find ourselves feeling lighter and more free.
What I carried away from this meditation is that we are all bound to this river. Learning to swim in the white wash, to float on the surface, to climb out and, most importantly, to rest in the knowing of one’s essential beauty and deservedness.
Driving home on Sunday morning I found myself equally amazed and stunned that a group of middle-aged white women, all in the healing arts, still struggle with aspects of their being. And how, even now, when I am in the river, I perpetuate my suffering by thinking that I am alone.
Next time I find myself twisting and turning in the white wash, I will open my eyes. I will remember that I am not alone. Friends & family are there with me, somewhere along the river. They are on the shore watching over, in the rapids flailing, in the quiet eddies floating or pulling themselves up on a large rock and climbing out.
May we remember that we inhabit the same river. And that when we are in the throes, there are many, standing on the shore holding space for us. Loving us.
May we remember that we are never alone in the river of life.
