My new friend Carol is the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper. Her job is to be the voice of the River. At last, we’re admitting that this planet is a living entity and the soil and the water need to be tenderly cared for. Hurrah.

Carol and I were at lunch the other day, and she lent me a book Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols. It’s amazing. It has a long subtitle, which I can’t remember but It talks about how our brains and therefore bodies and emotions react to water. Of course I love it!

So, Carol leaves me thinking a lot about our Rivers (and I’m preparing for our community’s ingathering service which is all about water). That was when I realized that I’ve spent at least half my life by the Susquehanna. So there I was thinking about rivers, how they change me, what my responsibilities to them are, and someone forwarded a post about saving Langston Hughes house in Harlem. If you don’t know his rivers poem, look for the full poem here.

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins

My soul has grown deep like the rivers. …

It’s a wonderful poem. Rivers are wonderful things. If they’re going to continue to change our lives, we’re going to have to continue — or maybe start — to care for them.

There is Peace in the rivers for us. Is there Peace in us for the rivers?