A gathering that seeks the sea
A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane. It is an epic that traverses four rivers on four continents - a spring in the UK near Macfarlane's home, a river that pours out of the cloud forests of Ecuador, catchments that sweat under the oppressive population expansion in Chennai, India, and an untamed living being in the northeast of Canada. In the same week where I'd sat through meetings where people told me that the upper catchment of my home river — the river that is also the primary source of my work — bore no relation to the lower estuary, I'd escape home and open the book to dive back into the mystical nature of rivers that are alive, autonomous, and connected (of course).
It was one of those books that you don't really want to finish. So when I eventually did turn the final pages, I found I needed more. I tracked down a podcast where Rob talks with Horatio Clare about the book and the stories surrounding its creation. During this conversation between two friends, I found the thing I'd been looking for. A complete refusal to even acknowledge the idea that rivers are not connected. It came when Clare asked Macfarlane for a definition of rivers, to which he responded,
"the best definition of a river I have come to is 'a gathering that seeks the sea.'"
before adding,
"...we misunderstand rivers when we singularise them."
We often take for granted this idea that legislation and legal frameworks are meant to protect from harm. But who is making those laws, and why? Rivers have not been properly protected on this continent for centuries. As the english common law took hold in australia it neglected — and continues to neglect — the lifeblood of the driest inhabited continent on earth. It stood in stark contrast to the lore that had ruled here for eons.
If we look at history since colonisation there are plenty of valiant efforts to try and maintain some form of respect for the rivers that flowed through a land that was wholly unfamiliar for the new arrivals. Rivers were the first highways that allowed for expansion of the colonial project. In the case of the Northern Rivers, they did much of the work of the early cedar-getters for them. Transporting vast quantities of felled red gold downstream with minimal human effort. They may be a generation defined by their destruction but early colonial accounts in the region exude a kind of reverence for these living beings that are central to their lives.
More recent history is littered with attempts to protect the plight of ailing rivers. Braver governments were willing to be accountable and make its citizens accountable for their actions. As it so often does, politics eventually got in the way. Now governments find themselves stuck in a quagmire, helplessly watching our rivers collapse while being too scared to stick their neck out and make courageous decisions for a better future.
But if you look further afield — beyond the often cynical and jaded realms — things are changing. It's almost impossible to deny. Given my own personal upbringing I've wholly subscribed to the idea that art precedes reality. And if you follow the world of art — in all its beautiful shapes and forms — you can't help but notice that rivers are everywhere, flowing through people from all walks of life across this vast continent.
When Robert Macfarlane talks about rivers being a gathering that seeks the sea he isn't just talking about the water that flows through landscapes, abiding only by gravity. He is talking about all of us and every living being that shares the same river. Water is our common ground.