Warrior

I kayaked the last slide of the fish ladder this afternoon. The level was hovering a bit below 3.3, a bit low to try the fingers for the first time. I thought about checking out 'Grace Under Pressure', but I was not to keen on running it for the first time without anyone with prior knowledge. There is always an aspect of attractive drops that calls beyond the thundering tumult of trepidation and more deeply into the core of one's self, forcing a vivid reality of one's true state of mind, a magic elixir few other potions in life can offer with such tremendous realism. As I stared down the aqueous march into a towering wall of water, I could only imagine the jaws of a lion clamping tightly as my body writhed to free itself from the chains of imminent death. Today I stared confidently, knowing that I would smote the beast and live to tell the tale. It is not often I like to think of the river in such an adversial manner. Moving water is peaceful. Whitewater offers a melody that resonates in more chaotic scales, and for matters of survival and the avoidance of severe inury, I find it necessary to claim a logical momentary lapse of reason and stand like a warrior on the edge of battle...

Zen

I paddled every day last week. I got back to basics, the simple joy of boating, calmly situated between currents and calamity. There comes a day when peace must arrive in the sense of existence. In the life of a river, those moments arrive in calm pools surrounded by every past, present and future moment of water traveling ever onward through scores of time, like the rise and fall of musical notes in a masterpiece of emotion. Life exists in those pools, and in their stillness one can appreciate a true sense of the grand illusion of time. Truth is felt, no longer spoken, and the importance is unimaginable.