Streaming

 

What is like for you?  This question posed by Mark Kutulosky at a retreat last summer during the Pilgrimage for Earth has stayed with me.  I have been asking this of the Ottauquechee River.  Asking that question has resulted in the commitment to most days take a photo of the river from one spot on the Middle Bridge, a covered span in Woodstock, VT.  I hope to do this blog project for a year.  I have been observing the river every day.  Having decided to engage, I need to write about what I see, and what I learn.

Asking that question has opened a cornucopia of other questions.  What is it like for the river?  Well, what is it like for a person?  If you want to know deep down "what it is like" to be another person, for instance, you would want to know the life story and the web of relationships which define him or her in terms of family, work, friends and other vital issues.  You would want to know how the person responds to ongoing events, and what she or her thinks about the past.  You would want to know how that one relates to you personally.  You might explore the cultural implications of being born in a certain place and a certain time among others shaped by similar  backgrounds.  You might seek to learn what other people have to say about the subject of your attention.

All these questions, inspired by the first, can be adapted to any thing in Nature.  I am asking them of the river.  I have immersed myself in a flow of opinions, insights, facts, stories and images.  I invite you to join me.  If you have thoughts or experiences of rivers you would like to share, please post a comment. Think of it as "streaming."

The temperature went below 20 degrees Fahrenheit last night  Where the ducks fed yesterday is again ice.