I have another excuse to revisit Robert Macfarlane’s magnificient book, Is a River Alive?, thanks to the recent New Moon in the water sign of Cancer.
The constant changing waters of rivers, and their sometimes serpentine path, is much like Cancer, ruled by the ever-changing Moon who follows a snake-like path through the sky every month.
Furthermore, the Moon and Cancer are associated with memory, as are rivers:
She – the river – has a memory of the people. I see her like that. She has a memory. And when you are connected with her, you can be connected with the ancestors. If you are respectful with her, she will bring us food and she is travelling with us, she is just helping us – so we have to give her the same protection that she gives us.
I see the river like a person in-between, who makes connections in time and space (p 238).
I wrote last time about how water can become “impounded,” just like meaning can. There have been many efforts to control water, which have converted rivers into becoming a “standing reserve.”
A step in the right direction is to view rivers — and our souls — as verbs, not nouns:
“In English, pronouns for natural features are ‘which’ or ‘that’, not ‘who’: the river that flows; the forest that grows. I prefer to speak of rivers who flow and forests who grow. In English, we speak of a river in the singular. But ‘river’ is one of the great group nouns, containing multitudes. In English, there is no verb ‘to river’. But what could be more of a verb than a river?” (p. 22)
Fear of our own largeness can turn us into a “standing reserve.” James Hollis writes about this so often.
Macfarlane describes how a sagely woman in Canada told him, prior to embarking on a several days journey down a river, that he would have the opportunity to ask the river one question.
But the question you can ask of the river is not about family. No, it must be a question for you, from you, to the river... One question for the river each, no more. The answer will most probably come on the days that you fast. You should fast for between twenty-four and thirty-six hours when you are on the river. This will help you get an answer to the question (p. 225).
This reminds me of how my astrology teacher Adam Elenbaas recommends approaching a natal chart with a question, because astrology is divination, similar to bibliomancy, tarot, the I Ching, etc.
He says that this question should be comparable to one you would ask of a wise sage that you journeyed a great distance to visit.
Macfarlane was on the river for several days, and had some harrowing experiences, before the question finally came to him:
[T]he question Rita wanted me to ask of the river is nothing to do with fear or age but is after all and of course the question of life, which is notLi a question at all but a world
find the current, follow the flow
….
it may involve a great reach outward of mind and imagination (p. 295)
We can also ask our soul questions in order to find and follow our current. As James Hollis says:
“Keep asking the large questions. Large questions give you a larger life. Large questions restore to you the sovereignty of your soul” (Living With Borrowed Dust, p. 135).
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