It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear. She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages. And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever. But there is no other way. The river cannot go back. Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence. The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean, because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know — it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.”  –Kahlil Gibran

 

Knowing that the way
has been divinely planned,
even the gouging cuts
and rough-hewn banks,
even the freezing cold of
ice jams and the torrents
of spring flooding, the summer
time lows and the fall dying,
even if all the risk and all
the chances seem to be gone,
and the only choice is to
finally immerse one’s self
into the great gulf of extreme
disappearance, will there
always be this looking back
to the freshet, the bubbling
out of the earth Source
from whence it all first came?
Even when there is no
shoulder to glance back over,
other than the waves and air, will there still not be some
kind of wondering somewhere?

6-17-20