Rain and Clearing

This last picture of the mystical light by the river bend at 6 in the evening seems a fitting shot to share as I pause this river journal for two weeks..

Down and Up

As I looked over the railing, a dark bird with an iridescent black head flew out from under the bridge and into a tree on the left bank.  Moments later a flight of about ten more followed.  There is something wonderful about seeing birds flying below you.

The water was so clear, I took a picture looking as straight down as I dared.  Dropping my IPhone into the Ottauquechee has always been a distinct possibility.  I love the picture below, as it reveals the bottom of the river, then reflects the clouds.

Late July Light Collage

Light and Depth

Shadows open up

the river's depths, while the light

generates more light.

I stood this morning on the span downriver from the Middle Bridge.  I took this picture from the Iron Bridge, where Rt. 12 crosses the Ottauquechee.

Purity

Stream Over Stream

Streams of humid sky

Reach to the Ottauquechee,

flowing to join them.

Concentrating Heaven

Sometimes the river

Concentrates heaven's glowing,

Not just mirroring.

Wordsworth

"I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills..."

Kingfisher

From a tree above,

A kingfisher dropped, glided

Over the still stream. 

Afternoon Joy

Morning Mist Rising

Change of Weather

July Perfection

Today glowed a crystal blue.  At four this afternoon, Creation laid on a palette of sky and tree mirroring, shadows long and short, and clear river water.

A squad of tourists with name tags from a nearby Pennsylvania bus hustled toward the span, just as I left it, cameras at the ready,

Early Afternoon

The View from Two Bridges

Joshua and the River

From Joshua 3:

When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people. Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, the waters flowing from above stood still,...while those flowing toward ... the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.

The Jordan is about as wide as the Ottauquechee,

Water into Blood

Moses confronts Pharaoh at the Nile River, demanding, in the name of God, that the monarch let the people of Israel go.  Pharaoh refuses.

The book of Exodus, chapter 7:  "In the sight of Pharaoh and of his officials, [Moses] lifted up the staff and struck the water in the river, and all the water in the river was turned into blood, and the fish in the river died.  The river stank so that the Egyptians could not drink its water, and there was blood throughout the whole land of Egypt."

If for different reasons, the scene.paints a painfully familiar picture.

In the early evening tonight, on a hot day, a ten-foot two by six piece of lumber with one smaller piece sticking out a right angles floated down river and round the bend.

I walked downstream to the next bridge to see if I could spy its progress.  It had disappeared.  I took thhe picture below, looking back upstream as the light faded.  Kids were swimming just under the bridge.

Dream by a River

In Genesis 41, Pharaoh shares a dream with Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachel, a prisoner in his dungeons.  "In my dream I was standing on the banks of the Nile; and seven cows, fat and sleek, came up out of the Nile and fed in the reed grass.  Then seven other cows came up after them, poor, very ugly and thin.  Never had I seen such ugly ones in all the land of Egypt.  The thin and ugly cows ate up the first seven fat cows, but when they had eaten them no one would have known they had done so, for they were still as ugly as before.  Then I awoke."

One never knows what a river will deliver.

Yesterday in the morning, the Ottauquechee River flowed clear with barely a hint of movement.

Approaching Twilight

Jacob at the River

Morning Light

From Genesis 32:  The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.  He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.  Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

At the riverside alone at night, Jacob wrestles with an unknown power, in the end revealed to be God.
The divine can lurk at the water's edge.  Jacob limped across the Jabbok in the morning light, with a new name and a blessing, Israel.

Three Views

I tokk the picture above at about 8:30 in the morning,  In the early afternoon,  Jack and I walked to the lawn visible in the picture above as a small triangle just to the right of the riverbend.  I took a picture looking back to the bridge.

I took another looking a the "rapids" just downstream.

Clear River

The river flows clear,

Still with strength from recent rains,

Carrying its weight.

For the Healing of the Nations

In the book of Revelation, the river running out of the City of God has the tree of life on either side. The leaves of the trees are "for the healing of the nations."  This evocative phrase does not lend itself to easy interpretation in the Biblical context.

In our current environment, knowing how the leaves of trees work to absorb the carbon dioxide loading up our atmosphere, all our leaves serve as healers, for all nations, for all Earth.

Revelation

Rivers run through the Bible.  The four in Genesis 2 begin the river theme.  The very last chapter of the last book, Revelation, begins with this description, "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.  On either side of the river, is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations."

Genesis

Rivers do better in the Bible than the sea.  The opening words of Genesis describe "the spirit of God moving over the face of the waters," and all being "without form and void," the ocean as primal chaos.

The second story of creation, found in Genesis 2, describes the Garden of Eden, which has not one, but four rivers flowing through it.  If Eden were our corner of Vermont, these would be the Ompompanoosuc, White, Ottauquechee and Black Rivers.  Summer in Vermont, close to Eden.

Return

A break in the rain today brought some late sunlight.  

"This river begins as all rivers do, with a drop of rain, a wisp of fog.  It gathers on stone, amid fern, and weeps from the branches of wind-shaped spruce."  - Nathaniel Tripp, from Confluence

I took this picture just before I left for Virginia, at 6 a.m.