The Wisdom Of The River

"The Wisdom of The River" is halfway between fairytale and guided meditation. We follow the journey of a river as she makes her way to the sea, noting the patience, trust and faith she needs to get there. If we evolve these natural river-ly qualities in our lives, how much easier would it be? This is the first in a five-part series based on the five-element system of Chinese Medicine, all encouraging us to return and learn from the natural world.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this meditation.

The Wisdom of the River is the first in a five part series,

The Wisdom of Nature,

All written and performed by me,

Karishtina O'Loughlin of 5E Meditations.

These meditations are ideas which are based on the principles of Chinese medicine.

These principles are called the Five Elements or Five Element Theory.

The ancient Chinese observed the patterns and cycles in nature,

Observed our organs and the types of emotions we have,

And over many thousands of years refined and connected these things into five categories,

Five Elements which interrelate and connect with one another.

The first of these five elements is called Water Element,

Which this meditation is inspired by.

Water Element in Chinese medicine is associated with the energy of winter,

Night time,

The time after death and before birth.

Organs associated with Water Element are the reproductive organs,

The bladder and the kidneys.

The emotion associated with Water Element is fear,

But the fear is more in the rational terror than anxiety or worry.

Water Element is the territory in which the Chinese place the unknown and by extension death.

Positive qualities of Water Element are tenacity,

Courage,

Patience,

Perseverance,

Faith and trust.

It is with these qualities in mind that I have written this meditation about a river making her way to the sea so you can ponder on the nature of her journey and gain some of her qualities in your life.

The next four meditations will focus on the next four elements.

All meditations are set in a place called the kingdom.

We begin in the forest and nature before moving into the village and then into the castle of the queen where the series ends.

If there is an idea that you don't understand,

Listen and let it be.

If you don't understand,

Keep the track on the loop.

Through repetition,

The idea will sink into your subconscious mind and will be understood innately over time.

These five elements also relate to our personalities as well.

For more information,

If you're interested in this,

Please see the other branch of my work at circularfacereading.

Com.

Close your eyes and begin to breathe slowly and deeply.

Let each breath carry you deeper and deeper into yourself.

When you breathe in,

Let the breath flood your chest.

Let any worries or cares vanish into the ether.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Become aware of your body.

Become aware of what is supporting you.

If you are lying down,

Become aware of what is behind your back.

If you're sitting,

Become aware of what you're sitting on.

You'll start to feel the tightness in your body.

Any joints that are stiff or aching,

Any muscles which are sore.

And breathe into these and breathe out.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Here we are with River who has come down from the mountains from a hidden source deep inside the earth.

She starts off as a trickle,

Then a babbling brook,

Then twists and turns down hills and through forests,

Wearing the earth broader and deeper,

Becoming darker and swifter,

Making her way to the sea like all her brothers and sisters.

Let's see what we can learn from her.

When River came from the mountains,

She stubbornly and persistently nibbled her way through solid rock to flow above.

But then with the same willpower she flowed into the sea,

But she did not directly make this progress.

She wound,

She curved.

It's the same with our lives.

When we explore a meander like the rivers,

We are making progress every day,

Not in the way that we can see in the short term,

But in a way that will surprise us in the long term.

All growth does not have to be so obvious.

River is a wanderer and so is the act of healing.

We will find that when we are emotionally healing we will be wandering,

But rivers are not places of light,

So healing happens in the dark.

We will not know that we are healing or that we are wandering.

We will feel lost and blame ourselves and that will be it.

We need to understand that our deepest moments of healing are our darkest.

The deepest part of River is the swiftest and then she will drop to become a waterfall and then she is swift and deep again and then she allows herself to drop.

This is how rest and activity works.

Yin must follow Yang.

Like river,

Rest will always serve us well just as waterfalls serve her well.

River flows and allows and so things evolve in her favour.

If the mind was a thing in nature it would be like river,

Both are non linear,

Inventive and free.

So when it comes to healing emotional wounds and creating health in mind we cannot take a linear approach.

It would be against nature and so twice the struggle.

How can you heal the non linear then?

Listening to the self and how it feels is the key to healing.

Doing what we feel like doing can create an irrational order where everything flows and has its place,

But this type of feeling has nothing to do with emotions and everything to do with sensing.

We can only flourish in feeling if we respect that the irrational order it creates will pay dividends in the future.

There is no use in trusting when we criticise and doubt while doing so.

River is deep,

Everything she needs to overcome the obstacles towards the seas and her innate power and will.

So what to do when needs to be done simply rises.

If it doesn't rise the river trusts and has ample patience that it will overwhelm or wear down the obstacle.

Nothing she needs for her goal will come from the outside.

If trust,

Patience or faith are weak in our lives then we will start many projects,

Hack at many branches,

Achieve nothing and then retire in depression.

If trust is strong like river we will overcome like she has.

We will wear hard earth smooth and grind rocks into dust.

If river had a conscious analytical mind would she reach the sea?

Perhaps she would do it faster but she wouldn't be a river if she was fast.

So if we have no trust in the unseen and the unknown how can we trust our minds?

How can we trust life?

River believes where there's a will there's a way.

Believing that she would just reach the sea is enough for her.

If river trusts her nature she can trust her journey.

River is independent her lone nature encourages freedom of mind and freedom of opinion.

The deeper river trusts the better her action.

Trust is depth.

Like the arrow and the bow you need to go back to go forward.

Trees must grow roots into the earth to grow forward to the heavens.

If back means trust or rest then it must be done.

Just as it's not a matter of time if river reaches the sea healing and recovering are not matters of time but matters of patience and trust.

River finds the way by exploring.

Exploring the self,

Pondering who we are is the best way to know who we are.

Exploring leads to gently and slowly finding what is right and what is wrong for our natures.

Once we know that we can express it in our lives.

River is like the tortoise in Aesop's fables slow and steady wins the race.

If there is a rock larger than her in her way she will wear it down little often and badly.

Badly on Sundays and well on other days it doesn't matter river still wears the rock down.

How she wears down this rock is exactly how we should form our habits.

When river is alone she is listening to who she is deepening her sense of self.

The world inside river with all the reeds and fish is as real and as physical as the world outside.

The same is true of the mind unseen does not mean unreal.

River has no eyes an obvious statement so how she will travel to the sea is by a sense of touch and feeling not emotions not logic but how something feels to her.

For us it would be like handling of ours in the dark and knowing what it is and what is its purpose without seeing it.

Rivers wisdom counsels her action.

River isn't disciplined neither are her sisters yet they have reached the sea fed towns watered trees let birds drink from them.

They are not disciplined yet they have done much in wandering and being slow.

It's because they are not pressured things by nature.

When river doesn't know where she is or where she's going her trust must deepen when she meanders and so too must her self respect.

River is part of the waters of life everything in creation originally came from the dark wetness of her family so in life everything is born from mystery and the unknown the womb or otherwise.

There's nothing to fear from them this is just how it's always been organised.

River always feels safe because of the reassurance she receives from the kind banks of the earth guiding her self.

When she is safe and when she tells herself as such she can express her true nature.

River has a sister who is a tributary of another sister.

Just like river what if our families are not family trees but family rivers,

Infinite in time,

Flowing forwards with no definable mountain source.

If that is true then there would be many tributaries behind us.

Whether that's our ancestors or our history there are thousands and thousands of years worth of people who are shared in this experience called life.

Don't forget that whatever you've experienced or whatever you're experiencing someone before you somewhere in history has experienced it as well.

And even if you don't know those long gone people you share a connection to them we're not individuals all alone it's not all up to us.

And if you'd like more thought on this river is out of time.

While seasons affect the trees or other plant life and the animals it doesn't affect river.

If winter does it will need to be particularly cold to freeze parts of her but even then she will move in courage to persevere towards the sea.

The point is memory and history,

Connections and bloodlines are all out of time.

River's power is often forgotten or ignored because she is so subtle and works so slowly that we would consider her work unseen or hardly done at all.

It's the same to be said of trust,

Persistence,

Faith,

Intuition,

Doing what we feel like doing we forget how powerful they are because of how slowly they work.

We need to let River go now and next move on to the oak she feeds down the way.

But before we do there's one last thing to consider.

Does River grow?

When River has become wide and deep and has several rapids or two has she grown or has she deepened and become more like herself gathering momentum on the way?

I'll leave you now with River so you may absorb her wisdom and develop your own insight and conclusions.

The water is flowing out of the water so the water will come out of the water and that will kill the water as well as the water that will come.

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Nature sounds nature sounds nature sounds.

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Reviews

Lovely, calming imagery.🐸

I love the story and the underlying messages / wisdom that is packed in there. I will definitely be listening again, and look forward to the other four in this series 🙏

And
I agree with the comments below about a slight amendment to the pacing ... for me, I would love the Breathe in ..., Breathe out .... to have more space as I found I felt urged to cut short the breath in order to stay with you. A small thing, however 😊 And I love this piece.

Just beautiful- thank you 🙏

Peaceful, soothing.,wonderful.
Thank you.

insights on trust i really needed to hear. impactful and reassuring whilst i am on my healing journey. thank you.

Dear Cairistiona, thank you for your rich wise narration. It is a bit brisk, however I am grateful for the remarkable background recording of the river and birds and the time to spend in silence. Sending good wishes.

Thank you for your questions re: narration and pauses...as the background is so evocative and compelling, my opinion is the narration slowed down with pauses between will increase the resonance, especially with the ending silence. Sending good wishes with gratitude.

Just what I needed, beautiful!