Member-only story
No Longer a River
The development of consciousness is the burden, the suffering, and the blessing of mankind.
— Jung
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When I was first diagnosed I began sharing it with family and friends and co workers — and people asked me if I had resolved my relationship with my parents — changed my diet, cut out sugar. Was I exercising enough, thin enough, releasing the entities from my body fast enough?
Not one person asked me if I had lost my connection to the land…
I had forgotten how to breathe.
I had become used to seeing the full moon over a billboard for underwear…
I’m writing this today because your body needs the natural world, it craves the connection to the earth and the other creatures that inhabit it and once inhabited it, because we are not separate from them, and they are not separate from us. This connection is needed to make food for your body, your heart, and your spirit.
— Laura Lentz
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The art of old age is to arrange them to end up like great rivers, serene, wisely, in an estuary that stretches and where the sweet waters begin to feel the salt, and the salty a little sweetness.
And when you realize you are no longer a river but an ocean.
