“If you will think of ourselves as coming out of the earth, rather than having been thrown in here from somewhere else, you see that we are the earth, we are the consciousness of the earth.” —Joseph Campbell

We go to the river, a bend in the circle between storm clouds and the sea. The great basins of the Sierra Nevada pour snowmelt downhill, and the rivers pump like a runner’s veins with the lifeblood of the earth. Later in the season the veins throb more slowly, like the deep currents of our inner lives. The blue, green, gray river allows reflection, fixes my gaze like the eyes of a loved one opening to the depths of the soul. Nearby, a purple mountain rises up like the arched ribs of a lover.

Transported, body and mind, on the river, by the same water that may have once flowed through me, I know that I am a part of the Earth and it is part of me. I rose up out of the land with the same clay in my own ribs. Feeling this way, naturally I want to preserve and protect it, just as I want to preserve and protect myself. If rivers are like veins of the Earth, I want them healthy, not polluted. If mountains are like ribs of the planet, I want them strong, not depleted. Life on Earth is still evolving, all of us, together. If we destroy or diminish any part of the source of our bodies and souls, we lessen our own evolving consciousness.