Score #24: Invite someone you love on a walk with you along a river
“The river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains” Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
It’s 4:15 pm. I walk down to the river from my studio. The tide is high and the lake adjacent to the river is filling up at the sluice gates—an ancient system of wooden gates through which water automatically is let in and out depending on the sea tides that feed the river.
The air is warm and heavy, the leaves on the trees are still. The river is full, pregnant with tidal energy, overflowing. I sit down on a small rock, on the piece of land that divides the river from the lake.
I begin to observe patterns in the flowing water.
I throw in a stick from a mango tree that I had picked up earlier on my way. For a moment it stays in the same place, then circles around before it starts moving away—slow at first and then very quickly disappears from view entirely.
In Siddhartha, the river is a recurring symbol of life’s interconnectedness and the wisdom found in its flow. As Siddhartha listens to the river, he begins to understand that it contains the essence of life, with all its cycles and contradictions. He realises that life itself is like this—it is all-encompassing, and though it appears divided into different moments and places, it is ultimately one continuous, unified experience.
I suddenly miss my stick. Why did I throw it in, in the first place?
I am forced to listen to the river. I hear it laugh. “Everything comes back again. You, too, will come back.”
I wait till the sun sets, the river is calming down now. There is a gentle breeze.
Nothing is truly ever lost.
Score and text by Avani Tanya, living in Aldona Village, Goa, India.
Painting by Geir Tore Holm, living in Skiptvet, Norway.
Ink on paper. Made in collaboration with the dogs Mirjá and Siidii .