Page 5-6
Reflections on the Celebration of the Russian River: A River Runs through Us
Now winter grips the Russian River. Gray rain may swell the river to a brown flood - or the river may flow, a chilly, unfrequented stream, past bare - tree brown banks. Its watershed runs full now, from the River's Mendocino headwaters to its Jenner meeting with the sea. Now the River hibernates.
This hibernation means keeping warmth and life within, snug, secure, enclosed. What remains especially warm within for me are the memories of this year's Celebration of the Russian River, that packed week in September when Sonoma County could join in a series of events along the watercourse, along the watershed. Environmentalism means, certainly, saving the river; it also means, letting the River save us. The River Runs Through Us.
This year, as last, the Celebration of the Russian River began at its northernmost springs, in the mountainous country north of Redwood Valley and Ukiah, along Tomki Road joining the valley to Willits. Twenty or so people made the journey there: parking at the foot of the grade, walking up the farm road, finding the pools where the Russian River, a rivulet, a trickle merely, starts its hundred-mile journey to the ocean. We were joined by Native American Pomo and also Buddhists: a meeting of East and West already. And what speech can be between humans in the right surroundings resounded here ཀྵ as, after the Pomo had drummed and spoken, his words lingered: We Americans, all its peoples, now share the Fate of this land; that Fate we once held is now shared by us all, a sharing, and also a giving over. These are Headwaters words: that the threads that weave and bind and release all beings downstream intersect here, bind us here too. After all, our guide told us, the steelhead swim up this far to spawn.
Beautiful and fitting also the chant of the Buddhists, intoned as it had been for centuries, echoing thinly in countless Tibetan valleys among the snow-clad peaks: Liberate us from our darkness, enlighten us. Fitting also the straight-talk, the heart-talk as if spoken from the Inner Light: the participants' sharings and response. Most fitting, finally, the perfect autumn morning, the sunlight on the pool, the insects in commotion across it, the rings and ribbons of reflected light caressing the logs and banks. The Headwaters, even if just this little pool, were everywhere full of harmonious and living motions, little light caresses, like songs written by sunlight.
Drawing water from this pool, to ferry it to the sea, was a fitting gesture of this Fate evoked by our Pomo speaker. For what does stir inside us? What things join you to me, to all those who have chosen to parcel out this watershed, build our houses therein? Are our houses one Home? What does it mean to dare to say, A River Runs Through Us?
Certainly some inkling of these things had inspired our gathering and talk mid-week of the Celebration, "Living Waters: The River, Religion, and the Environment." We met to bring to our consciousness the age-old religious traditions linking watercourses to the human soul, to baptism, immersion, purification, meditation, wisdom: May you be a verdant tree beside restful waters... Then the proprietors of Hop Kiln winery led a group of pilgrims in search of these living waters, through their expanses of preserved riparian woodland, up the river-shaped and rock-rich gravel bar to a strong rapid, whirling, suckling, murmuring beside us. There we listened. We heard the rich old Pomo tongue, and through the words
What some of us said there, or thought there, might interest you. We said, How soothing and special it has been to be here. To be here together, drawn together to celebrate. How wonderful it will be to be here again, next year certainly, and in future years, and joined by many others. Surely those who lead us, who are our elected or appointed decision-makers, should be here - to listen.
Perhaps if we are to live here in this watershed, we must celebrate here in this watershed. Celebration, we now know, is living by and through the River, and together with the myriad forms of life that inhabit this place together with our own humanity.
So the water-vial gathered at the Headwaters pool was poured into the salt sea one week later, capping the Celebration. So the sunlit pool of water joins other waters, and runs rapidly past that gravel bar where we later stood and watched the evening gather itself together. These waters flow, all of them, into the source of waters, to be reborn anew as vapor and rain. To be renewed, to repeat this again. Just as we have been renewed by our Celebration, and renewed anticipate another time of renewal, and another, and another. Join us somewhere along the river next year, won't you?
Return to Top
Return to Table of Contents
Previous Article
Next Article
409 Mendocino Ave., Suite A
Santa Rosa, CA 95401-8513 Tel. (707) 573-3160
Send mail to our Webmaster with questions
or comments about this web site.