Today I walked by a stream that tumbled like a weak baby-child, giggling and slipping over pebbles, inviting me come and play.  A short while later, that same river roared and blustered, passionate and carelessly splashing and gouging the riverbed, I would not dare set a foot in there.  That same river.  Has it truly changed its ways?  And is it for the better?

The chemical composition of the river changes because of the earth and rocks and plants between and over which it flows and the sky, the climate under which it flows.  This is its nature.

Then there are dams on the rivers, some are made by those outside the river – people or animals – but sometimes the river tries to dam itself by picking stones off the riverbed in one place and dropping them in another.  The river will flow over the dam wall when the dam is full and the flow will be a smooth silver sheet or a flooding breaking storm!  Because this is not its nature.  Or is it?

All rivers end.  They split and divide and lose themselves in the sea.  They sink into sand.  Disappear.

Accepting, understanding and enjoying, working, channelling: these are all good and fruitful when the river understands its own nature.  Then it naturally shares its abundance with birds, its tumbling with canoeists and its drench with the thirsty.

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