"Take me to the river."

I have noticed that human beings are drawn to the water. We swim in it, bathe in it, fish in it, float upon it, ski on top of it, drink it and then disturbingly enough pee in it. Whenever there is a storm, hurricane, heavy waves or whatever you will see people right down there doing their level best to take pictures and possibly die in it. It's got to be some sort of primordial drive right?

We are both fascinated and terrified by it's power and we must witness it first hand. Around here Spring River and Shoal Creek are the major water shows. You have to drive a ways to get to any lake of boating size. So we gravitate to the river. And we LOVE damns. We love the waterfall effect. We love the sound of the water pounding over the Falls.

Yesterday I knew the water was up so I first checked out Spring River here in Carthage and it was out and about. Not as bad as it has been but it was having a muddy walk about the park. It still fascinates me that some brilliant engineers thought it would be a good idea to build Route 66 right along the edge of the river. I mean...this major roadway was right on top of the river. Baffling! Anyway...folks were out and about...including me...taking pictures and watching the flood water pouring along. Checking out how much was over the roadways etc....

Later I decided I would check out the Falls in Joplin even though I knew EVERYBODY would be there. It was pretty crowded but I still took my pictures. Folks were milling about taking pictures, watching the power of the river as it pounded over the falls, listening to deafening roar of the water, and getting soaked by the mist. People would just stand there and watch and listen. I don't know about them but it makes me feel alive.

And it just made me think...here we have something in common. Here we have left all distractions behind. No TV, no computer, no work, no artificial noise crowding our brains. We have all followed the siren call of the river to just come and listen and "be". We are joined together in our love and fascination with nature. For just a brief, shining moment we are real people taking in a "real" moment. We should do this more often.

Namaste.