<\/p>\n
This evening my spirit was craving the sight and sounds of flowing water.\u00a0 <\/span>So I put on my sneakers and gathering up my sweater, I took a short walk up Moonlight Way.\u00a0 <\/span>(Yes, I am blessed to live off of a road called Moonlight Way.\u00a0 <\/span>Aren\u2019t I a lucky woman?) \u00a0<\/span>After a quarter of a mile or so, I took a left, and within a couple hundred yards I could hear and smell the gurgling stream.<\/p>\n I stepped off the edge of the road and I ducked under the boughs and branches of the trees on the banks of the creek.\u00a0 <\/span>I stood and simply gazed at the water flowing toward me, singing its beautiful song as it made its way over and around and between the smooth water-worn rocks.<\/p>\n Almost immediately I felt transformed.\u00a0 <\/span>I felt the magic of the place.\u00a0 <\/span>I felt the blessing of this water tumbling down from some beautiful mountain spring.<\/p>\n What is it about flowing water that is so precious and powerful?\u00a0 Perhaps i<\/span>t is because it’s a symbol of life (for we all need water to survive) but also a metaphor for being Zen-like, for going with the flow.<\/p>\n Almost twenty years ago now, after a very difficult several months, my then-husband and I sadly made the decision to separate.\u00a0 <\/span>It was a huge gut-wrenching decision and represented a major turning point in my life.<\/p>\n During the first few months, feeling quite alone in my little apartment on this big country estate, I grappled with an enormous boatload of feelings. \u00a0<\/span>I see-sawed back and forth between regret\u00a0 and wracking sobs of sorrow, and tingles of excitement and periodic glimpses of joy as I started to build a new life for myself. It was in the midst of all this change that I found myself singing this little ditty that came to me.\u00a0 <\/span>It went like this:<\/p>\n I flow with the river and the river is my life.\u00a0 <\/span>I flow with the river and the river is my life.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i>I sang this tiny little song over and over and over again.\u00a0 <\/span>Somehow it helped me feel a little better.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n There was no doubt that I was at least half responsible for this decision that had uprooted me from a good marriage, a stepson, a beautiful home, in-laws, and socially acceptable coupledness.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Clearly I didn\u2019t just flow into a separation.\u00a0 <\/span>But once I was there, I could choose to fight it, regret it and feel shame about it, or I could roll with it.\u00a0 <\/span>The image of a flowing river helped me to roll with it.<\/p>\n Today on Facebook I happened upon the following, from a page called Zen to Zany.<\/p>\n Flowers do not struggle to bloom<\/i><\/p>\n Water does not struggle to flow<\/i><\/p>\n Sun does not struggle to shine<\/i><\/p>\n Grass does not struggle to grow<\/i><\/p>\n STRUGGLE IS UNNATURAL<\/i><\/p>\n Be like Nature<\/i><\/p>\n GO WITH THE FLOW.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n May there be flow in your lives, friends.<\/p>\n Be like the river and let go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This evening my spirit was craving the sight and sounds of flowing water.\u00a0 So I put on my sneakers and gathering up my sweater, I took a short walk up Moonlight Way.\u00a0 (Yes, I am blessed to live off of a road called Moonlight Way.\u00a0 Aren\u2019t I a lucky woman?) \u00a0After a quarter of a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,198,286,29,285,30,280,287,247,195,176,104,201,288],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blessings","category-depressed","category-divorce","category-flow","category-go-with-the-flow","category-nature","category-rivers","category-separation","category-spiritual-boost","category-stream","category-transformation","category-water","category-zen","category-zen-to-zany"],"yoast_head":"\n