For me, there’s something about water running over rocks. I think I inherited this gene from my family. Dancing, skipping, burbling water surging through a canyon that continues to change as the waters rise and fall.

This place is not just beautiful, it’s dangerous. It seems a ludicrous statement on a fall day when 8 inches of water cavort by you. But two years ago this stream rose 20 feet to eat that bridge. Every year some crazy college kids assume they can run the spring run off and too often one or two of them don’t make it. It is not just still water that runs deep.

The space in the canyon not taken by water and rock is filled with trees and sweet, sweet air. Air that tastes like a benison after what we’ve been breathing down in the valleys. Air that we should fret over as the frackers peer over our shoulders.

To many times in the last year, I have taken my grief to this stream and it has eased my burden. Back and back again, I’ll go this fall, because my heart will be heavy a long time. I’m thinking that Steve and I need to go, drum in his hand and simply sit to watch the leaves change and the water run. He’ll find the rhythm the creek dances to… maybe I’ll find some words. Maybe I’ll just find the silence broken only by the hawks who scream overhead. I’ll be present and the prayer the creek offers will soothe my soul.

This valley is beautiful in every season. Even when the water roils and rises, Peace runs through that valley and caresses me on its journey downstream. Over time perhaps it will tumble smooth the shards of my heart and I will focus more on the dancing memories and less on the painful grief… But the seasons come and the seasons go in this Valley and my heart will fill. The creek and my beloved will see to that.