The Same River Twice
The Revelation of Old and New
I’ve recently undertaken a process of excavating and spending quality time with some of my most joyous and buoyant memories - or as Silvia Hartmann calls them, star memories. This serves as a foil to all of the conflict and darkness that can arise in both the inner and outer world. It is a wonderful foundation to stand upon and generates real momentum.
The first memory I excavated that had a deep impression in me was fishing off a floating dock on Depot Pond in Eastham, Massachusetts. My friend Noah and I would walk along the shore past a big patch of pickerel weed to a spot where a giant hole had been dug so the local volunteer fire company could come fill their tanks with water. The pit would attract eels and for some reason, a whole lot of freshwater mussels. We would collect a handful of mussels and then walk back to the beach in front of the rental cottages we were staying. We’d load our gear into a leaky, old rowboat - the green one was my favorite - and row out to the dock.
We would spend hours laughing and chatting about whatever was in our hearts or heads while we reeled in perch and sunfish with our freshwater mussel bait. It was pure paradise to my 8 year old self and the memory of it still lights me up all of these years later.
A Reunion with an Old Friend
When the opportunity arose to camp for five days on Cape Cod, we jumped. The thought of going back to one of the places that I still to this day call my “Happy Place,” felt perfect. How amazing to travel with my son and my wife - who also has loving memories of the Cape from childhood - to this magical realm.
My mind swirled with memories of special experiences at all of my favorite places - Coast Guard Beach, the Bay, White Cedar Swamp Trail, the Eastham Wind Mill, the Red Barn, the Superette, and Arnold’s onion rings. How would we have time to do it all? And would it be the same as it was 30 years ago?
Every time I mentioned Cape Cod to people they talked about how crowded it was, how expensive it had become, and emphasized the negative. What if Cape Cod did not line up with my memories? What if my family hated it? What if I hated it? Sometimes our minds can really get in the way.
In some ways it was making me feel divided in myself and I was having a difficult time staying in the present. It got me to pondering that old maxim, “you can’t step in the same river twice.” I couldn’t stop imagining what the river would be like. And I just wanted to enjoy the river anew rather than pining for what once was.
A Not at All Punky Brewster
Our campground was situated in Brewster. I have almost no memories of Brewster from my almost 20 summers at the Cape. Coincidentally, Brewster is the first place my Mom visited on the Cape when she was a young child. In many ways, I could feel the spirit of wonder of that little girl as I stepped into the river with fresh eyes.
My first morning, I woke up early and took a ride to a beach on the bay in Brewster. It was low tide and so I walked a half mile or so out into the mud flats with the gulls, terns, plovers and a dozen or so early rising humans. I could feel the experience of the bay in my cellular memory. It felt like it did going to the bay in Eastham where we would try to walk out to the bones of an old naval target ship at low tide.
The feeling I experienced as I took in all of the delights around me seemed like nature was talking to me - offering me some sort of guidance.
The next night, the bay called me back, this time with my Boo. After a beautiful date filled with soul expanding conversation, we wandered back to the marsh for a night time stroll at low tide. While walking in the dark, I could feel something new in me emerging from the alchemy of the water, sand, wind and a wide open heart.
The experiences kept going deeper and deeper. I lost sight of the Cape Cod that was and experienced what is as the spirit of the natural world filled me up more and more. We went on a long bike ride to the ocean and read books and bounced in the waves just like I did as a young teenager and even though the activities were the same they were a completely new experience. I was not re-living, I was living it as if it were the first time.
The Nature of Virtue
I recently read a beautiful exploration on the meaning of virtue by Richard Rudd, a modern day poet and mystic and the founder of the Gene Keys. He said,
“Virtue is simply the unimpeded expression of nature through people living at their zenith.”
My experience of life and nature felt in these moments felt like they were offering me a taste of this kind of virtue.
I woke early early again as the connection grew in me and rode to Wing’s Island. I walked a nature trail through marshes, meadows, forests, and finally to the dunes and the sea. I fondly recalled the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp of my youth and felt more alive as the space called me deeper into the experience.
I was literally singing as I emerged at the beach and my cells were pinging with life. It was truly a walking/waking ecstatic state. After all was said and done, I am not even sure how I got back to our campsite.
The following day, which was to be our last on the Cape, I rode back to the trail with my son. While we were lingering in the marsh listening to osprey call and the wind blow through the grass and crabs skitter across the mud, I could feel the land speaking to us. It was an incredible experience to have nature speaking to and through me. And even more so, that I got to share it with my new family in a way that not only brought my sister and parents and grandmother in, but also allowed me a glimpse of a true experience of the river. It was a revelation.
This exploration of nature and revelation is part 1 of a 3 part series exploring the highs, lows and lessons at the closing of our six month shared hero’s journey as a family. Part 2 will explore the dark night of the soul, and part 3 will center on the reward. My hope is to use this as a springboard to the hero’s return home and the next level of discovery of Everything Sacred.
Scot Q. and Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey Redux