We are the river, and stardust, and time, too, and so we are everything! If only we could remember this. Thank you for such lovely words and giving us things to think about, Shannon Rivers
Hi Julian, I did like this post. Not to be too fancy pants, but it did remind me of Thich Nhat Hanh's words in The Art of Living. Not that I have those words reverberating around my head on speed dial, I just happened to pick it up as some bed time reading last night.
Indeed! Heraclitus – or at least, that strand of philosophy that runs directly from the few fragments of Heraclitus that survive, on through to process philosophy, and Alfred North Whitehead and others – is a big philosophical influence on the book. Well spotted. Yes, I should probably reference him, if I use this in the book.
Oh, thanks. Interesting idea. Might be a bit abstract and lacking in character and conflict for smaller children... but yes, perhaps for slightly older ones.... Hmmm, I'll think about it!
I've really been enjoying your work, i really enjoy the thoughts it has been inspiring. I realize you've prefaced this as a "riff" so i hope my critique isn't misplaced, i intend it from a place of kindness.
This simplification of the water cycle really doesn't work for me. It's not an annual cycle - the annual cycle of the freezing and thawing are parts of it, but rain can verb too, and falls many places other than the snow caps of mountains. I really really like the idea of "to river" and I'd love to see more of the messier examples of how it's a complex system explored as part of this idea
Hi Thomas, thanks for the feedback. Sure, the entire cycle is far more complex than I had room to explore here. I just wanted to expand briefly on the term "river", to give a hint at the complexity that particular noun hides, and sadly I had to stop at some point, before I found myself writing about the whole world. So I sympathise with your point, you are right! This is just a little riff, but there's a whole symphony of possibilities I did not explore...
hi Julian, I have some energy today, and this turned up in my inbox, and I read it, and I just wanted to comment because it was so beautiful that I just kept reading and reading and thinking and thinking. I'm still percolating my thoughts, but... thank you so much for writing this, and for sharing it.
I translated a line in a game once that contained a phrase that roughly translated as "a breeze stained the colours of the sunset". at the time it stood out to me because my pedantic side insisted that a breeze is invisible, and therefore can't be any colours. but the phrase stuck with me and keeps haunting me because I love it conceptually, and I feel like your post has given me a better idea of why.
another game line I translated once talked about the stars "twinkling quietly in the sky" and got me wondering about what would happen if the stars *weren't* quiet, and I've been slowly pecking away at a story about that. one day I want to write a story about a breeze that's stained the colours of sunset. maybe I will put some rivers rivering in it somewhere.
I hope your trip to London goes wonderfully, and look forward to hearing all the gossip when you return. please take care of yourself while travelling. <3
Does our scientific culture have a hard time with thinking of things as processes because of prevailing theories of time? Seems as if Lee Smolin is an outlier - I see lots of support for eternalist / block universe conceptions amongst prominent physicists and philosophers. I've been hearing more lately about process philosophies but I can't square that with the B of time in my head. If the future is equally as real as the present, did it need to go through a "process" to arrive somewhere it already exists?
Would love to hear more from you on the nature of time and how that relates to "egg physics". Thanks for your work Julian.
Very nice piece Julian, you write beautifully. When I read it I thought how humans have always felt that there must be a 'spirit' of a river. I think in our more modern, more dead idiom there is no short way to say it when we have lost the ability to feel what a Naiad must be.
“Learning a language represents training in the delusions of that language.”
Thank you for the reminder. I’m currently a missionary for an organization who’s theologies I don’t completely share. But, the universe told me to go, and so I listened. There’s been many opportunities to help others increase their bandwidth for love, and increase mine as well. I’ve got 2 months complete out of me 2 year commitment. It sometimes feels long and dark and I get lost in the language used to communicate here. You’re work really is refreshing and brought me back to earth a bit. I appreciate you, my friend.
Thank you so much for this beautiful reminder that language so often blinds us to process. We fixate so much on the thing in front of us, and not how that thing came to be, what lives in it, or what it will become.
Thank you. Yes, one of my aims with the book, and the Substack, is to re-describe the universe so that we can see it fresh. Glad this piece clicked with you.
Julian, you’ve beautifully illustrated the flowing nature of ‘the river’. Of course as you recognise I’m sure, a river is so much more: while the hills and valleys shape it, it also shapes the landscape, gouging and wearing it away, it also contains plants and fish and animals and insects and natural (and unnatural) chemicals which provide food and minerals for each other and to people, along with the water itself that quenches their thirst, and it often provides the means of transport and even power. And as you know, these and the flows you describe are global, everything mixing and interconnected with everything else in a ceaseless dance of being which is impossible to describe beyond the merest hint :)
I know! I wanted to keep on going, and include the plants and fish and animals and bacteria, and show the position of the river changing over time (I love ox-bow lakes, and the endless reshaping of the curves of a slow-flowing river...), but it was just a riff. But yes, you are right, there is no natural stopping point, there's no edge. It would be perfectly possible to expand this riff into a book, or several books...
Lovely writing that made me think further and deeper for a while... About rivers, about verbs and nouns, about the sun, about the universe, about languages and their peculiarities, about the origins of languages, about the water cycle, about the river of people through the generations, about my body and my peculiarities, about family and our children, about life and death... Have a great week.
We are the river, and stardust, and time, too, and so we are everything! If only we could remember this. Thank you for such lovely words and giving us things to think about, Shannon Rivers
Thank you Shannon. (What an appropriate name! I grew up about ten miles from Lough Derg, the largest lake on the Shannon river.)
Hi Julian, I did like this post. Not to be too fancy pants, but it did remind me of Thich Nhat Hanh's words in The Art of Living. Not that I have those words reverberating around my head on speed dial, I just happened to pick it up as some bed time reading last night.
Ah! Interesting, thanks... I think my wife Solana has a copy (she really likes Thich Nhat Hanh), I will pick it up and have a look...
Reminds me of Heraclitus - no man ever stepped into the same river twice, as he, and the river, are always changing.
Indeed! Heraclitus – or at least, that strand of philosophy that runs directly from the few fragments of Heraclitus that survive, on through to process philosophy, and Alfred North Whitehead and others – is a big philosophical influence on the book. Well spotted. Yes, I should probably reference him, if I use this in the book.
This would make a wonderful children's picture book, lightly adapted
Oh, thanks. Interesting idea. Might be a bit abstract and lacking in character and conflict for smaller children... but yes, perhaps for slightly older ones.... Hmmm, I'll think about it!
this is so beautiful i had goosebumps at the end... thank you for sharing!
also i don't know why, but the sentence "the river does not river" made me laugh, thanks!
Delighted you liked it!
I've really been enjoying your work, i really enjoy the thoughts it has been inspiring. I realize you've prefaced this as a "riff" so i hope my critique isn't misplaced, i intend it from a place of kindness.
This simplification of the water cycle really doesn't work for me. It's not an annual cycle - the annual cycle of the freezing and thawing are parts of it, but rain can verb too, and falls many places other than the snow caps of mountains. I really really like the idea of "to river" and I'd love to see more of the messier examples of how it's a complex system explored as part of this idea
Hi Thomas, thanks for the feedback. Sure, the entire cycle is far more complex than I had room to explore here. I just wanted to expand briefly on the term "river", to give a hint at the complexity that particular noun hides, and sadly I had to stop at some point, before I found myself writing about the whole world. So I sympathise with your point, you are right! This is just a little riff, but there's a whole symphony of possibilities I did not explore...
hi Julian, I have some energy today, and this turned up in my inbox, and I read it, and I just wanted to comment because it was so beautiful that I just kept reading and reading and thinking and thinking. I'm still percolating my thoughts, but... thank you so much for writing this, and for sharing it.
I translated a line in a game once that contained a phrase that roughly translated as "a breeze stained the colours of the sunset". at the time it stood out to me because my pedantic side insisted that a breeze is invisible, and therefore can't be any colours. but the phrase stuck with me and keeps haunting me because I love it conceptually, and I feel like your post has given me a better idea of why.
another game line I translated once talked about the stars "twinkling quietly in the sky" and got me wondering about what would happen if the stars *weren't* quiet, and I've been slowly pecking away at a story about that. one day I want to write a story about a breeze that's stained the colours of sunset. maybe I will put some rivers rivering in it somewhere.
I hope your trip to London goes wonderfully, and look forward to hearing all the gossip when you return. please take care of yourself while travelling. <3
Does our scientific culture have a hard time with thinking of things as processes because of prevailing theories of time? Seems as if Lee Smolin is an outlier - I see lots of support for eternalist / block universe conceptions amongst prominent physicists and philosophers. I've been hearing more lately about process philosophies but I can't square that with the B of time in my head. If the future is equally as real as the present, did it need to go through a "process" to arrive somewhere it already exists?
Would love to hear more from you on the nature of time and how that relates to "egg physics". Thanks for your work Julian.
I love your “riff” about the River as a Verb and am grateful to have you put into language what some of us can’t articulate.
Very nice piece Julian, you write beautifully. When I read it I thought how humans have always felt that there must be a 'spirit' of a river. I think in our more modern, more dead idiom there is no short way to say it when we have lost the ability to feel what a Naiad must be.
One of my favorite quotes is from Frank Herbert,
“Learning a language represents training in the delusions of that language.”
Thank you for the reminder. I’m currently a missionary for an organization who’s theologies I don’t completely share. But, the universe told me to go, and so I listened. There’s been many opportunities to help others increase their bandwidth for love, and increase mine as well. I’ve got 2 months complete out of me 2 year commitment. It sometimes feels long and dark and I get lost in the language used to communicate here. You’re work really is refreshing and brought me back to earth a bit. I appreciate you, my friend.
Thank you so much for this beautiful reminder that language so often blinds us to process. We fixate so much on the thing in front of us, and not how that thing came to be, what lives in it, or what it will become.
Thank you. Yes, one of my aims with the book, and the Substack, is to re-describe the universe so that we can see it fresh. Glad this piece clicked with you.
Julian, you’ve beautifully illustrated the flowing nature of ‘the river’. Of course as you recognise I’m sure, a river is so much more: while the hills and valleys shape it, it also shapes the landscape, gouging and wearing it away, it also contains plants and fish and animals and insects and natural (and unnatural) chemicals which provide food and minerals for each other and to people, along with the water itself that quenches their thirst, and it often provides the means of transport and even power. And as you know, these and the flows you describe are global, everything mixing and interconnected with everything else in a ceaseless dance of being which is impossible to describe beyond the merest hint :)
I know! I wanted to keep on going, and include the plants and fish and animals and bacteria, and show the position of the river changing over time (I love ox-bow lakes, and the endless reshaping of the curves of a slow-flowing river...), but it was just a riff. But yes, you are right, there is no natural stopping point, there's no edge. It would be perfectly possible to expand this riff into a book, or several books...
Lovely read 😊
Thank you, Tamzin.
Lovely writing that made me think further and deeper for a while... About rivers, about verbs and nouns, about the sun, about the universe, about languages and their peculiarities, about the origins of languages, about the water cycle, about the river of people through the generations, about my body and my peculiarities, about family and our children, about life and death... Have a great week.
Thanks Herman. I'm glad the piece resonated with you.