There is a universal stream. We know we are riding the current when things fall into place. We know we are swimming upstream when our effort begins to cost us – when we are tight, rigid, and weary to the bone. When we feel like we’re fighting just to keep our heads above water. Swimming upstream does get us somewhere, but it takes a great deal of effort, and we are in the weeds and the bramble the whole time.
This is not to say that, if we go with the current, everything will be easy and effortless. We are still required to use paddle and rudder to avoid bramble and rock. Sometimes the stream is a white water river and keeping in the flow does require effort, but that effort is matched with an excited energy rather than a depleted energy: we’re in the flow, and we’re definitely having the ride of our lives! In the current there is still energy, but not effort, and that energy may be considerable.
Oftentimes, we have belief systems, old ways of being in relationship to others and the world we live in that keep us from relaxing into the current. Our fear and rigidness make us stone-like and hard to keep afloat.
A part of us grips the bank, and it has its reasons. It remembers a flood, a time the water carried us off before we were ready, and it holds on with everything it has to keep us from drowning. It softens when it is allowed to keep hold of the rope while we put one foot in the river.
Going with the flow requires nothing less than complete surrender. Surrender here means releasing how it has to turn out; the paddle stays in our hands and the choosing stays with us. We have a passion, an impulse, but we surrender that to the will of the Something Greater, understanding that we cannot always see the big picture.
There are rivers that are really not yours to ride. A river can be misaligned with your path without being a bad river. The river that is your river is the river that is your path.
I once lived in a house that had a cottonwood tree in the backyard. I would sit on the deck in May when the cottonwood released itself from the tree, barely able to breathe because the air was so thick with its gossamer seeds. I would watch the cotton fluffs ride the air currents, absolutely amazed at the many circular, seemingly erratic currents that existed just above me – it reminded me of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Going with the flow doesn’t necessarily mean our current won’t conflict with another person’s current. Like the air currents, there are millions of streams coalescing, colliding, combining in their own larger pattern. All that matters is that we open our own wings to ride our own current.
May you sense the knowingness of which river is yours.
May you let the current carry what you cannot.
May you enjoy the ride.