River Of Letting Go

There is a river. And you are at its edge.

A wide river, moving slowly, the colour of good water in good light. Not fast-moving, not urgent. A river in the middle section of its journey, past the mountain source, before the delta and the sea. A river that has been moving for longer than anything on its banks and will continue long after.

You are standing at the edge. The water is clear near the bank. You can see the riverbed, the stones smoothed by the same water over the same years. A leaf rests on the surface and moves away in the current, unhurried, turning slightly, going.

You have something to give to the river. Something you have been holding that is no longer yours to carry. Not forgetting, not erasing. Something that can be held differently. Something that needs the kind of release that only a river can give: the release of putting a thing in flow.

What is it? A resentment that has served its purpose and now costs more than it protects. A version of a story you have told yourself about something that limits you. A grief that you have held in a closed fist so long you have forgotten what it feels like to hold it open. A person you were who you no longer need to be.

Give it a form. A leaf works. A piece of bark. A stone if it needs weight. A handful of petals if it is something light. Hold the form in your hands for a moment and know what you are giving it, intentionally, before you let it go.

Walk to the water's edge. Let the water come over your feet if that feels right. The cold of it. Real, even in imagination, because the body fills in physical memories easily.

Place what you are holding on the surface of the water. The current takes it immediately or in a moment. Watch it go. The river does not ask what it is. It does not judge its worthiness of release. It simply takes, as rivers take everything given to them, downstream.

Watch until it is gone. Until you can no longer distinguish it from the ordinary contents of the river. It has been absorbed. It is part of the river's cargo now, moving toward the sea, taking the same journey all released things take.

Stand at the edge. Your hands are empty. The water moves past you. The river keeps going. Behind you, the bank. The firm ground. The air on your face.

Nothing that flows is permanent. Not the water, not the leaf, not the thing you placed on it. What you gave to the river was already moving, already changed, even when it felt most fixed. Rivers know this. Everything given to them arrives changed.

Take a breath of river air. Clear and slightly cold and true.

What was held is flowing. Let it go all the way. Let it go to the sea.

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