You may ever touch.
Is a river.
The water passing through your hands today has been here for billions of years.
It has fallen as rain onto forests that no longer exist.
Rested beneath glaciers.
Traveled through mountains.
Become mist,
Cloud,
Snow,
Sea.
It has flowed through roots,
Through leaves,
Through oceans,
Through countless living things.
It has never stopped moving.
The water that slips between your fingers today may once have fallen on a landscape no human eye has ever seen.
There is something extraordinary about that.
A river does not begin where we first meet it.
Nor does it end where it disappears from view.
It belongs to a journey far greater than any single moment.
A journey that began long before us.
And continues beyond us.
Perhaps that is why rivers have captivated people for thousands of years.
They have marked the boundaries of kingdoms.
Guided travelers,
Fed forests,
Shaped valleys,
Carried stories and reminded us.
That life has always been moving.
Perhaps this is why standing beside a river can feel familiar.
Not because we have been there before.
Not because the river knows us.
But because.
.
.
For a little while.
It reminds us.
That we belong to something far older than ourselves.
The same water that flows through rivers flows through clouds through trees.
Through leaves and through us.
We are not watching life pass by.
For a little while.
We are standing within it.
Flowing through us.
As it always has.
