December 4, 2023
Greetings from the witness,
Perhaps, it is this:
The water runs off the bark of the tree and wanders among fescue and fungi and soil and seed and living things and dead things and it seeks a destination it doesn’t know yet. Until it becomes the destination. An ocean, a lake, a pond, a river. And it joins other water in this living art, dancing happily and laughing and rushing and waiting, and all the while at one with others who have made the same journey.
Then the water leaves an ocean, a lake, a pond, a river, and it rises up, and it is magic. There is no schedule, perhaps no way of knowing what the purpose is. Perhaps it is going to heaven. And for a time, it is invisible as drifts up into a gathering of its kin, a place of tumultuous joy and power and beauty.
It wants to stay there in the sky, where it can be seen, where it is a work of art on a blue canvas. It is above the world, it is in light, it sees an infinite horizon. There is a bond between it and every other iteration of itself that holds it there. Every water that has ever existed is there or was.
But not forever.
The water bears it as long as it can before it falls again, an orphan of the cloud. It is often with friends, but sometimes alone, lonely, fulfilled, sometimes both at once. It changes and separates and bonds again and freezes and melts and falls in an impossible shape. It is an ocean, a lake, a pond, a river, but it is a tear.
In the falling it is visible again, seen and seeing. It knows the cold and the wind and the violence of lightning. It absorbs what is in the air, some of which is so fresh and exhilarating it is startled into being a new existence. It also absorbs the hardness, the ash, the heat, and it is changed again. It falls in darkness and somehow holds light. And it spills into the world.
It feels the sounds, takes in the movement of the world below. The rending and the healing and the crashing and mending and the laughter and the grief. It senses the dryness, the ache of those places without, those empty hollows. It hears the cry and the need. The water absorbs this and tumbles, somehow still intact, a new magic, toward earth. Somehow no matter how it is changed, it always holds its purpose.
Rushing up to meet it is an enormous oak tree. It has been growing toward the sky to meet the rain, to ease it into the world again, to bear it to its work. The water sees it and remembers it. It explodes joyously into the leaves of the tree, scattering and rejoining, becoming more and less and always water. And it sluices along the branches, bounces off the knots and shoots. It wends its way into the bark, the coarse fingerprint, and wanders onto limbs, past leaves, and soon-to-be leaves. And then it reaches this place, a place of potential and promise and possible. It reaches away from the branch, and it sees its future. And for a moment, not much more, it reveals something.
The water holds itself here, a strain between gravity and cohesion and adhesion and surface tension, trembling in this magic pose. Holding light in itself, bending light, glistening and precious, infinite and only for this moment, showing where the hope is.
In its graceful shape, captured for this fraction of life, there is the image of the water’s future. It is the next place, the next life, the reason, the purpose. It is the next giant oak, or whatever waits beyond the journey. It shows the mystery, not unlocked but at least unfolded a tiny bit.
The water waits as long as it can, witness and witnessed, and then releases back into its destiny. And it falls one last brief moment, perhaps singing as it falls, and plunges into the world’s crust. And then wanders among fescue and fungi and soil and seed and living things and dead things and it seeks a destination it doesn’t know yet. Until it becomes the destination. An ocean, a lake, a pond, a river.
Or us.
We are another magical form of water, sharing the space with the rest of the miracle that is us. And the water surges in us, dancing happily and laughing and rushing and waiting, and all the while at one with others who have made the same journey. Sharing its witness, making us possible. A miracle.
But even in the miracle, there is wonder and worry and anxiousness in not knowing, not understanding, not seeing where the hope is. There is fear when faced with mystery, or tragedy, or injustice, or the blank slate of tomorrow. Some mornings we wonder where the hope is, and we pray and we wish and we think and we don’t ever fully know.
We can see some of the answers when we look into each other’s eyes. The mystery is not unlocked but unfolded a tiny bit. The hope, the future is in us. It is in our potential, and it is in the potential of those who follow us. It was put there by the same Creator who made the water. Look closely, in the glimmer of water that lays across our eyes, in the tear that forms, from happiness or grief, and see the reflection and know where the hope is.
Hope this finds you reflecting,
David
Copyright © 2023 David Smith
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