There’s something dramatic about rushing water in a river or stream in the spring, a quite Romantic (yes, I mean the literary aesthetic) tying back to Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and Whitman’s From Pent-up Aching Rivers that relates to the fecundity of this time of year. Dramatic displays of waterfalls cascading over an abyss or a raging river pounding against the rocks & boulders in its way in these works symbolize human feeling, emotion. Spring is this period of new life bursting forth, coloring the monochromatic winter landscape with brilliant hues. All kinds of new wildlife explore the natural world, learning how to fly or hunt or explore. The water rushing to the earth creates an awakening of sorts, a time of renewal.

The surge in water outlets from the snow thaw & copious rainfall refill underground reservoirs which will become critical in the summer heat to sustain the life above–water, the life-giving force.

Rushing water can also remind us of natural forces that can be destructive, out of control, especially for introverts like me. My anxiety can often act like surge in my bloodstream in that adrenaline, flooding my body with a kind of damaging energy if I don’t learn to manage it. From the pictures here, you can’t hear the impressive roar of these waters, but the sound was deafening at the most powerful falls & eddies. And so I think about the riverbeds, which you’d think would be implacable, impervious, impenetrable, given its hardness. Yet, we see water cutting through the toughest materials. Ubiquitous canyons in Utah are here to remind us of this.

So, when I see these images of the pounding water, I see the symbolism & try to apply it to my own life. Please forgive my modest musings.

The wisdom that can spring from such reflection is a need to let go of trying to control the things around me, all those things that in reality are out of my control completely. This isn’t uncommon, of course, for over-achiever introverts to fixate & obsess. So we create dams & levies within ourselves, thinking we can control the flow of life if we bear down & have enough grit, firmness, self-control. It’s as if we just try hard enough or long enough, we can secure that cosmic flow & create our fate. But the more I try to exert such a kind of control, the more I find it to be illusory, elusive. We see the catastrophic damage when dams & levies give way when faced with too much surge. And so this warns me of what I’m doing to myself.

Perhaps that’s why the Romantic poets tried to educate the individual about getting out of the frenzied craziness of human society–a society obsessed with time, wealth, achievement, status. I’d rather read Whitman by the riverside & be reminded that we are only here for a brief measure, a drop in that vast water.

Why waste the time feeling sick with worry? Well, I’m working on that, folks.