The River
The passage that follows is from a book I’m working on right now. I’m not sure the passage works for a Writing Wednesdays post, but what the hell, I like it and my instinct tells me to put it out there.
The passage is part of a section about a twenty-two month period in my late twenties when I lived by myself in a little house in Northern California and did nothing all day but read and write. I’ve alluded to this time in The War of Art and a couple of other books.
I lived on a street called River Road then. There was a real river (not a big one, but one with real water that really flowed) across the street from the house I lived in. Anyway, here’s the passage:
As I write this now, almost two generations have passed. Yet the weeks and months of that time remain vivid to me. Nothing in my life before or since has penetrated me like those two years. In our society we erect altars to love. Songs, movies, even TV commercials tell us love is the answer.
I don’t believe it.
I believe in a different kind of love. I can’t define it except to say that it has nothing to do with the flesh, nor is it particularly personal. The goddess is real. Her stream flows inside you and me like an underground river.
That river is our life, our real life.
During those two years I lived beside that river. Nothing came between me and it. Each morning I entered the river, and I didn’t come out until I was so exhausted I could no longer swim or stand.
No one had told me about this river. No teacher had instructed me on it. No mentor had pointed me in its direction. I had tried before to enter this river, but I could never find the opening. Not like this time. Not like now. Was I producing anything of value? Not yet. That would come, if it ever did, years and decades in the future. But I was in the river and the river was in me.
The price of entrance to the river is work. Work is the toll of admission. The river can’t turn you away as long as you’re willing to pay. Paul would tell me that, and Bart too, and what they said was true. If you’re willing to pay the freight, the river has to let you in. That’s the law.
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WOW! Simply beautiful Steve. So glad you said, “What the hell,” and shared. This passage explains everything to me. A passage this beautiful makes me want to set my pen down for good. But that goddess keeps whispering in my ear, “I’ll show up if you do.” And so this early morning, I wade out into the stream. Thanks for the send off today. I’ll wave to those on the shore.
Jackie,
Exactly…what the hell?!?! Steve’s ‘what the hell’ post immediately soars to top 3-5 of all Writing Wednesdays posts!
bsn
Buddhism says Life is a River. The Buddha sat under a Bodhi tree by the river and proclaimed he was awake .
Oh my… This is so very profoundly provocative! Like a mother nudges her child into a safe place from danger, you’ve pushed me. It is intentional and firm as to be sure I know mother means business yet gentle enough to not cause fear or anxiety. I’ve done been nudged!
This post is how church is supposed to feel. Time to reflect on the only question that really matters: “Are you doing what you came here to do, or not?”
Coffee and donuts afterward, too, in the comments!
Maureen,
My thoughts exactly–love the coffee & donuts reminder! We cannot forget to break bread together after the toil, suffering, worship–which I’m beginning to see all as synonymous.
bsn
Ditto.
Maureen , an excellent perspective.
I was thinking the same thing this morning, Maureen, anticipaing the community and wisdom I find here.
This post is how church is supposed to feel. EXACTLY! You summed up my thoughts on this perfectly, Maureen!
I read that the answer to everything is labor and love.
But how does one convince oneself of that?
I swim with the gods everyday, have a volume of work, and continue creating, but when does the perspective of sage appear to know that my river reaches the sea?
Provocative today with no mention of battle 🙂
Siddhartha is what immediately came to mind, then the “Razor’s Edge” and cleaning the plate in a river.
This might be what Krishna meant when he said, “You have the right to your labor, but not the gifts of your labor.”
This has been on my mind of late–I now recognize that for many many years, I have used my gifts in a somewhat corrupted manner. There has always been one version or another of the 7 deadly sins: Pride (always–look at me, I DID THIS), Greed (material blessings will somehow fill the hole inside), Sloth (only doing the bare minimum, because often in life my bare minimum was better than most–good enough for government work type thinking)…
Plenty more nastiness I could describe–but, maybe, when we labor using our gifts for the ‘Glory of God’, a selfless act for others, honestly trying to do something, produce something of value, for the benefit of mankind or a single person or beast–then the labor is somehow alchemically transmuted into fruit.
Maybe.
bsn
Lovely.
I love this. I needed this.
One of the most important lessons this country taught me, an immigrant, is: “Show up!” I have struggled for a long time to understand it, and the process of understanding it has not yet finished. For now, what I know is, it has to do with taking yourself seriously, with standing up for what you truly believe in, with being and remaining in your own head instead of trying to guess what others might or might not think about you and your cause.
I drive down that very same road literally and figuratively – every day. Rural Sonoma county, which is most of it, provides wonderment to dream.
You always come at the subject right where the rubber meets the road. No nonsense. Thank you Steven xo
Michael,
Stick to it. I grew up as second generation American on my Dad’s side. I was called a dumb Polack so much that I almost believed it. I tried to overachieve to compensate for the thoughtless comments. It took time to not care about what others thought of me and to remain in my own head. You are already more than halfway there with recognition. Do things that are true to you, others and their comments be damned.
LOVE this Michael, Thank You.
Dear Steven, what your offering invoked in me was the memory of my favorite song, “Unchained Melody,” which I first heard sung by Al Hibbler. Except today, after reading your passage, I feel that the love I yearn for is the love of the muse.
So, here is a gift for you… Susan Boyle’s version of that sacred song. It touches my heart, just as what you wrote does as well.
Mindblowingly beautiful. Thank you.
“No one had told me about this river. No teacher had instructed me on it. No mentor had pointed me in its direction.” There is something so deeply profound in these three sentences. I am going to meditate on them for a long time.
“Work is the toll of admission” — I first read “toll” as “toil” — hmm, Freudian? Or merely two tags for the truth of “work”?
Applies to all creative ventures, yes?
Thanks for the deep thinks, Steven!
Beautiful and inspirational ❤️
Yes, I recognize that river. It flows deep in the hearts of all creative souls. Thank you Steven. And now I am going off to write.
Simply brilliant.
bsn
Last June, I moved out of my house, put everything in storage and moved to Phoenix to help my elderly mother.
Two days later she passed.
Since I’ve always been a gypsy, and I couldn’t function or make any big decisions in that head and heart-space, I decided to travel for the time being. In years past I’d hit the road in my van with my dog with no plan, no destination and really no timeline. But what came together this time ~ without much effort ~ was a series of much-needed visits with friends and house-sitting opportunities. I’ve been in Palo Alto, Phoenix, Bend, Nevada City, Jackson Hole and now Chicago.
My longtime friends don’t ask many questions when I’m in this place. I can tell it makes them nervous when I don’t have any plans, or any idea where I’ll be next month (or next week!), but they know well-enough by now and don’t ask. One of my friends has a new husband, though, and when I explained what I was up to, he quickly said: “Oh! You’re searching for something.” Nooooo…. I started … then he amended, “Oh, right. You’re trying to find yourself?”. Nope ….
I couldn’t tell him in words, what it is to make space and just go with it. That I learned long ago that the universe can arrange for the perfect opportunities and adventures if I just get out of the way. So we just let it go. The next stop was Bend, where I visited an old friend who has been a rafting guide his whole adult life. When I explained vaguely what I was up to, he looked at me with knowing eyes, and nodded. “Oh, yes”, he said softly and with a little envy. “You’re in the river.”
I’m sorry about your mother, Ann. And so happy to hear this snippet of your story.
My husband and I sold our house in Minnesota a couple of years ago, bought a 30-year-old RV, and headed east (to be closer to our daughter) without barely the address of a campground in hand. I’ve lived more stories after two years than I did in the previous twenty. I’m starting to think it isn’t so much WHAT you do is that you do it.
My heart leaps at the mention of Bend. The Inn of the Seventh Mountain is (or was) near there, and it’s where I went to two “What Color Is Your Parachute?” workshops. I took Darrell and Katie back there once, to show them the birthplace of most of my dreams (including them). On the outside chance your rafting guide friend’s name is Travis, Katie and I still talk about His Gorgeousness.
oh whoa, Ann, that gave me chills… ♥
Ann, your comment is, for me, a worthy companion of Steven’s post. Thank you. I am richer for having read it.
Ann…
I want to say: “I’m glad you got there and had those two days with her.”
and with: “On the road in a van with a dog with no plan, no destination and really no timeline,” you’ve just described my life goal.
What a great passage. I do sports psychology work for golfers. The players that I work with all want a quick fix to improve confidence, focus, calmness, etc. When I tell them there are no quick fixes and that they will need to put real work in everyday to develop these skills a certain fear comes into their eyes. They are scared to pay the toll and enter The River.
Hello Bill,as a guitar player with focal dystonia (“musicians yips”) I can very very well relate to your comment.
I know very well this “certain fear” you mention, because in music,or in golf,its not about the guitar or the bat, its about you as a person.
You cannot improve in music or in golf if you dont improve as a person.
I just happened to dip into the river of your emails and glad I caught this one. It reminded me why I subscribed in the first place. Thanks for the great content, Steve. I’m going to need that book.
A friend of mine just wrote a song about a river. Going to send him this link pronto! Inspiring stuff this Wednesday!!
Brilliant. Healing. Beautiful! Thanks so much.
I’m so glad you shared this! I have lots of contemplatable feelings about it 🙂 thank you!
Sincerely, Katie
Herman Hesse couldn’t have spoken of the river any better. I aim to jump in mine this afternoon.
“Weather you succeed or not is irreverent. Making the unknown known is what is important.” – Georgia O’ Keeffe
“and now I am married to the one person I really wanted to be with all along, myself.” – Tracy McMillan / Ted Talk
Love it!
For years I have built houses in my head when I couldn’t sleep–which is most nights now. There are houses in the mountains, houses on the beach, houses in the desert. I go back to each one from time to time, do a little remodeling. I go to them to be alone, to create. And in the morning, what I created during the night is still with me and I can bring these things into the ‘real’ world. They’re never the same, of course, but the essence of them is there. I’m not afraid there; I trust as true my own feelings there (as O’Keeffe once said she needed to do)
There is one house in particular I have begun to inhabit regularly and I ‘live’ there everyday now. I have everything I need there. It is mine alone. It is like Steve’s house by the River. I connect to the Universe there and I have been able to learn to write there about my weaving and all the things I’ve been afraid to say out loud about my creative life.
Ann and Maureen, I envy your wandering natures. My best friend in high school and I were going to get a camper and travel cross country (this was the 1970s) and we never got further than 1 day’s travel on the map. I would love to be a wanderer but it’s not my nature. So, I build houses and live in them. And maybe one day my head life and my real life will coalesce, but if not, that’s OK too.
Thank you Steven for sharing your River with us.
Thank you Lin, I think your houses are a brilliant example of what a “River” or a flow of true imagination is, when it comes to taking advantage of all moments of a whole day and not just the “work hours”.
Thanks. I liked what you said late last week, Tolis, about non-linear thinking. I’m like that too. I’ve always come at things sideways and often get strange looks when I make a comment about something that was obvious to me and noone else gets it. … while things that were supposedly “obvious” made no sense to me. I st0pped using lined paper for writing a long time ago because ny thoughts fly around, go back and forth. Just seeing the lines on the paper sometimes tripped me up. Now I write all over the page, sometimes in the middle working outward. Helps a lot.
Beautiful, Lin. Thank You
Thanks, Gwen.
I thought of this from Richard Bach’s book, ILLULSION. “The Master said, ‘Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom. The other creatures laughed and said, ‘Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks and you will die quicker than boredom! But the one heeded them not and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet in time as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom and was was bruised and hurt no more.”
Gwen,
That’s the preface to ‘Illusions’ right? I read that book after ingloriously being kicked out of house at 16. Was shaken more than I ever let on—but that book helped immeasurably.
Also a quote in the Messiah’s Handbook that says something to the effect of, “Your true family has nothing to do with blood. It has to do with shared values and acceptance (brutalizing the quote—it has been a minute since I read it). Rarely does one’s true family live under one roof.”
Thank you for both the insightful post, and the memories of how much Richard Bach has meant to me over the years.
bsn
Yes, Brian, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 in charcoal. Here is the Handbook quote. I have the corner turned down on this page: “The bond than links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do member of one family grow up under the same roof. “
Forgot to leave my name. It’s Gwen who Replied.
Thank you Gwen! While not a perfect memory–I think Richard’s main point stuck with me for over 36 years!
bsn
Gwen… also a Richard Bach reader (most of his early novels, but not so much of the ferret stories). Illusions is one I’ve read more than once. Thanks for mentioning it!
A beautiful imaginative way to see the River, thank you Gwen.
Thank you Gwen, it is a beautiful story.
the flow state!
Amazing. You are a source of constant inspiration for me, and continued admonition to do the work. Thank you so much.
“But I was in the river and the river was in me.” As someone who has only recently realized that I am called to be a writer, I will be thinking about this sentence and this post for awhile. Thanks, Steven!
I’ve been reading your Writing Wednesdays for some time now. Something compelled me to leave a comment. Not sure why.
Thank you for sharing your incredible insight and wisdom through your writings. You may have thought this wasn’t worthy of sharing, but it hits home more than you know.
So eloquent. So direct. Yet, filled with Love.
Thank you.
You’ve certainly made your mark on me.
Jim,
Glad you posted. The water is warm. Stay around.
bsn
Welcome, Jim!
Love the post and all the great comments today. I can get on board with “the kind of love that goes beyond the personal.” In trip reports from peoples’ entheogenic journeys, one often hears the person expressing a realization along the line of: “Love is all there is.” And right… it’s not about the flesh or about any individual who might be the focus of our longing or infatuation.
I think it must be the love that comes from the recognition that ‘there’s this one substrate, and we’re all part of it.’ The goddess is real… not only flowing through us, but it IS us. It sounds simple to say it, but profound and blows out the doors and windows to experience it.
The other thing that came to mind is that song by Rosanne Cash, with lyrics:
A feather’s not a bird
The rain is not the sea
A stone is not a mountain
But a river runs through me
https://youtu.be/vCtFDt9KoAg
Joe,
Poetic–and not just what Rosanne sang. Well done.
bsn
The goddess is us? This seems to be a powerful thought that can also be very playful, thank you Joe
Thank you dear Steve and all friends here,
I entered the River 17 years ago, when I was already an adult. I then read a book (the most unexpected one) and I knew I “wanted” to be in the River. I couldn’t read for more than some minutes or tens of minutes, my nature was totally un-hardy, still I would come back again and again every day and night I think. And the desire for the “river” was so strong that it would lead me to become an “explorer of knowledge” in time, being able to “stand still” for some hours every day of the year. Still working on that, I can’t believe that I lose hours and minutes of “Wise Awareness and Action”.
And then you helped me channel that river. I still work on that, it’s flow is so big and it engulfs everything in it’s path, that it’s very difficult to keep it flowing towards a specific direction. It can drown me so easily! The sensation of “drowning” is not actually dying, but stop moving your hands and *let the river lead, not your purpose*.When we first talked through video (it was April 2021 if I remember well) I told you about my book’s theme and form, I remember how happy and excited you were about my inspiration! You told me that it was so unique, that was why it has value! You even talked with Diana about it (so glad that you dedicate your new book to her, send her my best wishes if you can). Then you asked, “Everything changed for you in life after you committed to write that book, right?” Strangely I answered no, the change was not so global. Now I can tell that this was so because I was already in the river for 13 years (making it 17 years in the river until today). What your work gave me was that I dared to channel the chaotic river. Channeling a River, that is the quest of (wo)man I can guess. How much I long to listen to the War of Art again and again, again. And again.
OK…this one gave me chills.
I too, live off that same River Road, and moved here to dive deep into my creative life as a sculptor. Thank you Steven for including this passage on The River. So powerful, and rich with layers of meaning. It has inspired many of us with our own art.
I needed to leave another COMMENT after finishing reading all of them. What AMAZING insight, knowledge, truth and writings. THANK YOU EVERYONE. I felt so blown away with Steve’s Post and then came the Comments. Cry Me A River just came to mind.
Thank you very much Gwen!
This bought me to tears. Thank you for sharing these beautiful words.
Wow. This is the perfect message. Thank you for writing it, sending it.
I live on the NJ side of the Delaware. Being on it is the best.
And being in the river priceless.
Lordy, the pressure! But it’s the truth, there ain’t no denying that. Thank you Steve. Rolling up my sleeves….
Wow. This is the perfect message. Thank you for writing it, sending it.
I live on the NJ side of the Delaware.
I did ‘let go’ two years ago, quit my job and wrote 3 novels. I’m running low on money so am starting a new job in 2 weeks, and wanted to have at least one book ready to publish before then, but I won’t. I woke up this morning, depressed and feeling like a failure, then read this. I need to work but realize I can still stay in the river. The hard part will be disciplining myself to ignore the world so I can finish what I’ve started. Just ordered “Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be.” Who knows how many lives you’ve changed through your work.
Lori,
That is more inspiring than anything above, including Steve’s post. I admire you.
bsn
Hey, Lori. We’re pulling for you! Would it help to know we look forward to the report you powered through? 🙂
Lori I wish you an eternal River. Play with it, let it be more than a path: explore and express your deep meanings.
“The hard part will be disciplining myself to ignore the world so I can finish what I’ve started.” That’s the hard part for all of us, Lori! Don’t be discouraged. Though you will feel at times that your new job is taking away from your true work, try to think of it as sustaining you for your work, taking away the pressure you’ve been feeling about money so you’re more free to write.
Hope all goes well for you with your new job! As Maureen said, we’re all pulling for you here. (that’s the great think about Steve and this Wednesday gathering place!) Don’t give up, you’ll get there.
I just wanted to pop back in to say as a reminder to myself and others, that when I am floundering on the shore, unsure of how to ‘get going’ or ‘keep going’ or WHAT direction to GO, I need to remember to just slip back into the river… because once in, the river takes me where I am meant to go, tunes out all other noises of this bustling place (social media…), and reminds me of why I paint… for a purpose deeper than myself, and not for the engagement and/or recognition of others. Always thankful for your though-provoking words, Steve ♥
Sincerely, Katie
This is the absolute best possible message. I am grateful to you for both writing and mailing it. I call the New Jersey portion of the Delaware River my home. The nicest part is actually being on fnf mod.
The experience of being in the river is invaluable.
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I can’t wait to read this book. This was a beautiful bit. It would be amazing to see some writing examples too from before and after this period, to see how your writing evolved over the course of these almost two years.
It’s challenging to track down experienced people about this subject, yet you seem like you hear what you’re talking about! Appreciative
This is a great story. I want to hear more from you. Thanks for sharing
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