I was working on some writing for a river piece that I've been working on in my yoga for writing workshop and the person who read it felt it could be about refugees. Which is interesting because I already felt the river piece I'm working on could be connected to Borders Resurfacing. So, I offer this metaphorical story of a river instead of a specific personal or political one. The gist of the story is below along with some snippets of short movement explorations I made this summer, as well as some first draft writing in quotations.
I found the story in the book "An Ordinary Life Transformed." The book says it is a Sufi story, but I haven't found any other sources or versions yet. I'm still looking!
Below is my rendition of it. All of the video links below have the same password: river
Reaching river...
A joyful burbling river, traveled towards their destiny. Overcoming all the obstacles in their way with ease.
River traveling from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
Until they are stopped by a desert and begin to doubt themselves, each rivulet wanting to take a different approach.
Desert desperation from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
"Oh that we could reverse our waters' flow and go back the glacier we once
were, or choose another path along our many pronged journey. But there’s no going back. Even if we wanted to return, the force of
children and grandchildren, so many generations, have already melted and follow us. Would that we weren’t leading them to
this certain end. But if we try
harder, we just loose ourselves more. I found the story in the book "An Ordinary Life Transformed." The book says it is a Sufi story, but I haven't found any other sources or versions yet. I'm still looking!
Below is my rendition of it. All of the video links below have the same password: river
Reaching river...
A joyful burbling river, traveled towards their destiny. Overcoming all the obstacles in their way with ease.
River traveling from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
Until they are stopped by a desert and begin to doubt themselves, each rivulet wanting to take a different approach.
Desert desperation from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
We hear the rushing of the water behind us, the quiet deadness of the sand in front of us. The vultures cawing in the distance as if telling us of the certain danger ahead.
We see nothing but grains of sand reaching into the empty
sky.
We taste the dry dust, coughing into our throats as we choke
and cough and splutter out our hopes, only to forget what they were.
We feel light headed, like we are changing, despite
ourselves.
How do we allow ourselves to change without loosing who we are? We have always been the traveler over boulders and stones, around great unknown bends, through different foliage. We have seen valleys and meadows, but never, until now have we faced this dry harsh sand that devours us whenever we try to pass. Is it truly the valley of death for us ?
We feel our very atoms wanting to separate in this parching heat…but we cling desperately to an uncertain existence. Because it is all we knew, because it is all we have known. But are we still making sense? Our hydrogen filled heads are vibrating so much that we are feeling dizzy, getting lighter until, popping off from from our Oxygen filled bodies, we are suddenly floating free, ethereal, is this really happening? Cooler as we rise, release the agony and burden that kept us down, we have no choice but to let go all that weighted us down. Gathering together again, as if we’ve never met before our heads and our hearts all mixed up among one another, we buzz in the mist of a cloud."
The river "surrenders" and gets evaporated by the sun and becomes a cloud:
Evaporation to cloud from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
The cloud travels over desert, and rains down into the ocean on the other side. The river becomes one with their larger selves, mixing and intermingling with the multitude of other rivers and drops from around the world.
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Also there is this writing from the desert's point of view:
"I am thirsty, but am afraid of the impending waves. They lap at my sands, cooling, wetting
my pebbly lips, but I retract and gasp rather than being able to enjoy. It is too risky for My sands are
delicate, dry, and easily washed away with wind and water. So, I cannot, will not, let
those waters in. Drops turn into
rivulets, rivulets turn into floods.
What if the waves over take me and I am submerged entirely…drowning.
I am surrounded by all sides by this never ending
threat. Ocean on one side, lapping
greedily at me, pulling my very body into it little by little until I begin to
loose my identity into the depth of those icy waters. On the other side, a river is pounding into me, trying to
cross me and reach the ocean. I
cannot let it divide my home, separating me from my loved one, when we have
been here since memory started.
Although my dry cracked earth is parched, I cannot risk
letting the flow of this unpredictable frothy element pull me under with
it. So I stay strong fortifying
myself against each incoming wet rush, and dredge up my bravest, hardest,
driest soldiers to drink it up before it can eat away at my precious rolling
hills. Instead, I’ll take the
wasteland of dry brittle tumbleweeds, for at least with those my sands can
catch a ride and then be released freely at a whim, rather than being swept up
beyond my control, sucked into whirlpools of certain destruction.
I yearn for a life where I do no not feel constantly
threatened by these wild and uncertain elements. If only I could be left in peace. Some may call my life boring, dry, but it is predictable, it
is practical, it is in tune with the one and only almighty sun. We don’t need the pesky water to mess
up our ways, we get enough moisture from the passing clouds, and I have secret
underground chambers where I have imprisoned vast amounts of water in a way
that I can control its wily ways and keep it in check to be used properly for
the good of all my creatures. This
is the law of my land and all my sands must obey and fall in line or they risk
their existence."
