“I am haunted by waters.”
“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.”
-Norman Maclean, from A River Runs Through It
In the last few months, my “haunting by waters” has become increasingly intense. Urging me to listen to the words of “rocks from the basement of time.”
I have been hearing the roar of the “world’s great flood” of Pakistan’s Indus River. Its horrendous summer-2022 monsoon waters devastated two thirds of this remarkable country. The river’s flooding also left me with an indelible heartache from my 2022 three-month residency at the Indus River Valley Institute outside of Islamabad in Pakistan.
Simultaneously, another river “cut by the world’s great flood” — Arizona’s Colorado River — has been circulating through my body. I went there in the 1980’s, not to be one of the three million visitors at that time to the Grand Canyon National Park itself. But instead, to hike 8-miles down toward the Colorado River through narrow canyons within the Havasupai Reservation. I camped near the spectacular Falls (pictured above) and swam in its iridescent natural pools, both sacred to the Havasu Peoples.
Leaving the Havasupai Reservation, the waters then flow down into the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. This spectacular Canyon within the Earth is sacred to eleven ancient native tribes. Click map for more information.
Credit: National Park Service: https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/historyculture/associated-tribes.htm
The writer, director, and producer of the documentary ‘Voices of the Grand Canyon’, Deirdre Peaches maintains that “the canyon is just as much of a living thing as the people who walk its stony formations.” She relates that “The Grand Canyon is very special to us. It’s our genesis.” “What we do to the land we do to ourselves.”
New documentary explores real history of the Grand Canyon
Horseshoe Bend, Colorado River, Grand Canyon, Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/iC_Ytsvgf0E
As I look up from my writing desk, I can see outside my window a small spring and stream that I walk with every day. Further down the main road is the Aquetong Spring whose outflow makes its way into the Delaware River. The Aquetong Spring is sacred to the Lenape – the ‘Original People’ – who were indigenous for thousands of years to this region where I now live. European settlers violently uprooted the Lenape, driving them to Oklahoma. They are now returning, attending community meetings, educating us to their sacred relationship to the Earth here. Bringing to my doorstep what is happening across the Earth.
Can you hear the voices of the indigenous peoples whose homelands you now inhabit? In the silent darkness of my nights, I hear them from every corner of this glorious Earth. They are reminding me that “What we do to the land we do to ourselves.” Their voices are the river that runs through us all, merging all things into one. They are our ancestors. We once remembered that we emerged from the Earth. And acted in accordance with the words of the rocks. As I listen, I put myself in the river that runs through all things. The current carries me upward in a spiral of hope.
“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”