The Direction of Intention

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Last night I stood by a river as the last light of the sun transitioned from orange to purple to silver to grey to Prussian blue. Over the low murmur of the water the cranes called in the night. I was instantly quiet inside and realized that I am not enough in nature. My mind and life are full of fuzzy abstractions that dissipate on the banks; I am small here, insignificant and fleeting, a perspective necessary to the development of soul. I do not know how long we stood there, as time by the river is not counted so much as experienced.

Jim Edmondson once told me that people go to the seashore to touch the infinite. I think people attend the river to feel the finite, life both in cyclical and linear motion. If I lived here would I count my years by the return of the cranes? I hope so, though the sun and moon play chase around me and I pass months without participating. Once, I worked with kids in Los Angeles that had no experience of stars. I wondered what might change in their lives if only they travelled beyond the lights of the city. I wonder now why I choose to live within them.

Martin Prechtel writes about his village: people who more than participated in the dance, they attended to it. Their actions, their language, their thought mattered as they told their story again and again to recreate Time. They had eyes to see a world that was living (because they were living) and not just a resource to be consumed. They stood by the river all the time, or, as Joseph Campbell might say, they were in their church all the time. When was the last time that you knew without question that your thoughts and actions had impact in the regeneration of life? When was the last time you knew without question that you are fleeting, and it was your turn to keep the story alive?

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