Kayak river ride, tree/river encounter, unexpected water encounter

I spent time on Saturday, August 4th with my close friend Claude Roberts, who is a nature lover, and a fellow writer. Claude is going to guest on this blog very soon with a written story of another tree that collapsed near the Little Miami river and continued to grow beyond all odds. This story, however, is about an encounter with two trees that have fallen in the river and their bodies have started to break down and return their elements to the earth.

Claude and I put his two kayaks into the Little Miami River not far from his home in Newtown, Ohio. Within a few minutes of putting in, while drifting in the slow current side by side, I made a tobacco offering to the river as I have been taught from american indigenous traditions. I said a prayer to the water spirits, and in particular, the goddess of the Little Miami, and thanked her. Water spirits are, as far as I know, all feminine. I asked the spirits to show us anything that would serve our highest good.

The thing that I love about paddling with Claude on this river is that he is very slow and meditative in the way he engages. There is absolutely nothing type A about it - no need for speed. In fact, he prefers drifting with the current and using the paddle for course correction only, unless he is paddling backwards to hold station at a point on the river for something . He told me today that this is big medicine for him. I could see the catharsis unfold from his spirit. It was medicine to me just to watch him, but I'm sure the water was draining some of my stored - up worries and cares directly from me as well. I told Claude at one point that it felt like being held as a baby in the arms of our mother.

Before we left from his house, Claude asked me if I really wanted to take my micro four-thirds camera and camera bag with me. He warned me there was always a chance that I could capsize. I was thinking this is a very lazy river; that chance was small, and in order to have the option of capturing some images along the way, I decided to risk it. I didn't know at that point that I was going to have some unexpected interaction with this river.

We continued under a bridge, and down the river several hundred yards before coming to an island mostly overgrown with tall weeds. I did manage to find a spectacular little clump of purple flowers in the middle of it.



This island was a favorite spot of Claude's, and he let me know that he was going to beach his kayak on the upriver tip of this island, leave it, and float on the right side of the island to the downriver end perhaps eighty or a hundred yards away. He advised me that if I didn't want to follow him in that, I could find trails coming to the left banks of the island, and meet him there. I slip-slided my way along the bank, holding onto sturdy weeds to keep from falling flat. Eventually I found a trailhead on that bank, and followed a trail for the last thirty yards or so. On the right side at the downriver tip of the island, I met Claude. He pointed out a couple of fallen trees in the water which I took a few pictures of.





I waded across to the trunk of the nearest one. One thing I realized is that the two trees formed a constricted inlet that really picked up the river current at this point. The water was only thigh - high; yet it was all I could do to stand. I felt the power of the river as a broad spectrum of vibration against my legs in sync with the sounds all around me. The water sounds that stand out when you feel this broad spectrum have higher frequencies - those "babbling brook" sounds come to mind. Claude had told me that I should step on the nearest tree trunk and feel the vibration of the river with my feet. He pointed place for me to stand where the water went right over a low spot. It was here that I felt the lowest frequencies of the river's vibrational energy. That tree ... still alive, was filtering out the higher frequencies, and letting me feel the super low - frequency energy in my feet. The frequencies were subsonic; even seismic feeling. When we discussed what the energy felt like, Claude said it felt almost menacing to him. I can tell you that it was definitely dark feeling. It didn't feel all comfortable and nurturing. I said it felt like "don't fuck with me" energy. I was starting to feel like I had mis-characterized Lady Little Miami somewhat in thinking that she was always very calm, smooth, and easy feeling.

We walked back around the left bank, the way I had come down the length of the island, and put into the river on the right side with our kayaks. When I neared the downriver tip of the island, I found my kayak inexplicably pulled against the outer tree visible in the last photo above. In trying to paddle away from it, I somehow did a 180 and smacked the right side of my boat up against the trunk with my back facing upriver. I lost my paddle at that point, but I could see that Claude was clear of the island and "treacherous trees", upriver about 10 yards, and that the paddle was floating straight in his direction. I yelled over my shoulder a couple of times for him to grab the paddle so that we wouldn't lose it. My camera bag with the Olympus body and five lenses in it was really in trouble due to my grabbing the tree in a vain attempt to try and get control of the boat. I made things worse than they needed to be with this pulling against the tree, and the boat tipped to my left enough to fill with water. I turned loose of the tree, and becaue the kayak has superior buoyancy, I managed to float with in the half - sunk boat down to a shallows area by the next island. Claude helped me drag the boat up onto the rocky little island tip and we turned it over to dump the water. I then assessed the water immersion to my camera gear. There was about two inches of water surrounding everything. I drained the gear as best I could, removed the lithium battery from it's compartment in the camera, and put it all back in the soaked bag. I had to. I had nothing else to carry the camera and lenses in.

Now this sort of misfortune some years back would very likely have resulted in my throwing a "can't believe I did that - can't believe that happened" fit. Instead, I remembered that I had asked in my prayer at the beginning for the water spirits to show me what was for my highest good, and calmed myself. At this point in writing this blog entry, I don't know what they were saying to me. It was too early to grieve for my camera outfit. I would just have to take it home, give it time to dry out, and see what still worked after 24 hours or so. I resolved to not let this event ruin the rest of my river trip. I am happy to say that it didn't. I got back to that blissful drifting thing that Claude has led me into enjoying. I was back in mama Gaia's arms again! When we got back to Claude's truck, he gave me very good suggestion, which I followed - set the camera and lenses up on his dash in the sun to dry outside the bag on our drive back to his place. They fit easily because micro four-thirds format camera bodies and lenses are really compact compared to traditional DSLRs.

Claude and I had a wonderful meal in the Beechmont community, and parted ways. At my house, we have this "garden window" that we recently acquired as part of a window upgrade. I spread the gear out in said window for the last two hours of the day, and intend to let it sit there until dark tomorrow, catching whatever sun it can. Then, I'll attempt power - up.




It's time to close this blog entry. I intend to pay attention to my dreams tonight. I'm inviting those water spirits to show up in my dreamtime and clarify any messages intended for me in today's event. I'll be sure and share that in my next blog entry. Right now, it's a clear night and I'm going to step out in the back yard with my binoculars and try to view Mars in opposition.