Soul Walk along
I’m coming into this “walk” (actually a contemplative bike ride and river sit spot), at the confluence of the Farmington River and Burlington Brook, inside some relationship issues. My partner is away for the weekend, having left for a retreat before we could resolve some tension – meaning now it’s all just sitting in me festering. I biked here, so some of the tension is easing from the movement, the slow steady pull of my muscles and deep breathing, the shade of the trail and gifts of leaves falling around me, glimpses of the river already reflecting its trees’ autumn colors as I pedaled. Then another whole load of stress eases as I arrive here, this exact spot that first dropped me in to this place as my new home two summers ago. There’s a little sit-spot here, the roots of a yellow birch (checked on my Picture This app) creating a flat nest where I like to sit. It’s not the most comfortable: roots pressing on my tailbone, but I don’t mind that. The breeze feels lovely against my skin, coming from behind me and a little to the left, which is basically north.
Here is a photo of the view from this spot:
The water levels are low, so lots of rocks are visible, but there’s still plenty of flow, and the songs of the river and the brook are magic, pure mercy to my tired heart. I see mallards out on the river, sunning on a big rock. A trio of mergansers swim up the brook toward me, and one catches a fish that flaps around frantically in the duck’s bill before it eats it. They are so placid, letting the brook’s current carry them downstream then paddling back upstream. A kingfisher chuck-chucks up the river, and I see many woodpeckers closer by in the near woods. Just realizing I’m doing a mini SAM as I write, trying to capture all I’m experiencing! The mallards have suddenly launched themselves en masse, heading decisively upriver in a burst of loud quacks, and now swallows are dipping over and over into the water where the mallards had just been, so lovely.
Invitation: notice movement and track it with my body.
Invitation: find a being I’m drawn to and ask for help in coming to be at home here, as it is.
The second I finally put my feet in the brook– since the movement I want to trace is this brook’s strong flow surging against my skin, and the being I want to ask for help in coming home is this brook – I feel something shift in me. The water is cold, bracing. I stand up carefully, finding unsteady footing on the mossy rocks, and a big surge of wind showers me from behind with a fluttering dancing company of new leaves joining me in the water’s flow. In that moment I suddenly become aware of the reality of the brook and these trees and this breeze in a whole different way: I join them here, in this place, in this life, becoming suddenly part of the whole again. A big inner door opened with my feet’s entry into the water, entrusting myself fully to it all. With a shock I realize how oblivious I’ve been to the place, so caught up in my frustration that all I could sense was how the trees and river looked to me; it wasn’t until I stood up in the flow of the brook that I literally felt and recognized that it has a perspective too, and its own needs and life, and so do the trees. That is: I’ve been treating the brook and the trees and the place as if they were merely a mirror of me. I hear them confirming this: yes, we’re not surprised, this is how humans usually are, hordes of you coming down this path and stopping to admire us, but hardly any ever say hello or really see us. I stay a long time on a rock in the middle of the brook, feet in the flow, rapt in the steady swirling movement of leaves on the surface of the water, stones in its depth, this flow moving powerfully between surface and depth and carrying endless forms of life with it, including my partner and me. I’m so grateful.
View from rock (not visible in previous photos, located out in the brook)
This Soul Walk Project reflection was created by Lisa Dahill, Ph.D., the Miriam Therese Winter Chair for Transformative Leadership and Spirituality and Director of the Center for Transformative Spirituality at Hartford International University, July 2024 Cohort.