A River Runs Through Me

If our stories are what defines us, then the Ohio River Basin in Southern Indiana is the pool from which my story sprung and so serves as material for my intro blog on the importance of bringing nature into the lives of our children, as well as understanding how our own "place" is the basis for our story of life. What places have defined you? How does your memory of that place echo through your life and the decisions you've made? How spiritual is that memory, how emotionally enriching or draining? What lessons have your brought from that place to share in your story? Take a moment to "write" your story for your children to hear and learn from.

A River Runs Through Me
by Betty Malone

Life in the Ohio River Valley of my childhood was a gold and emerald epic set in a Rockwell painting. The rituals and culture of the region had evolved into a tightly woven multi-colored tapesty of feasts, family and farming. Each spring, the stately and gentle Wabash and the wide Ohio rivers wuld temporarily escape their banks, overflowing, seeping and irrigating the vast farm fields surrounding them. When I left the area after marriage and migrated to the refined northern regions of Indiana, I pitied the dominant river of the region, The White River, often thinking to myself, "Why, that's nothing but a big creek!"
Life majestic waters everywhere, the Wabah and the Ohion anchored their corner of the world. Immigrant settlers from Europe must have reached that place and recognized it as home in a new land, recalling their own beloved Rhine and Danube. Millenia of spring floods had created some of the richest black soil in the world and settling farmers transformed the flood bottoms into vast bread baskets, with wheat, soybeans and the ever present Indiana cornfield. Pottery shards and chipped arrowheads found in many of those fields, gave testimony to the previous inhabitants of the region who must have found the same perfect living conditions in the triangle of the two Rivers.
Fishing, hunting, agriculture, flint and stone, river reeds, clay and prairie grasses had been replaced in my childhood by stately two story white farmhouses and red barns filled with domesticed animals, chickens, cows and pigs, the holy trinity of southern Indiana farm life. Narrow, curving, hilly country roads wound through the countryside, connecting one small farm to another, each replete with it's own storehouse of nature's bounty. (Excerpt deleted here, can be read in full length article upon request)

But in my deepest meditations it is the mysterious, wide and beautiful rivers of my childhood that entice me home, a deep spiritual pulling of blood and water that has created me from some primevial ooze of tradition, family, nature and place. Born in that space, in that time in our history, I am carried away to secret mysteries and when I dream memories, it is the dark river that mirrors them back to me. I have journeyed from there many years, and sat in other sacred places and felt the power of the four elements, recognizing that I am rich brown earth and deep flowing water, the birthplace of my own unique story.
I sense the deep touchstones within me as I age, and see the effect in our people and our communities when they are missing that ancient source. Educators, community planners, religious leaders, and politicians meet in hushed academia rooms and ponder how to build strong communities, places where children can be birthed and bloom into their fullest potention. Knowing, and yet now knowing, that we have stepped away from the spirits of our places, the unique combination of elements that makes a place nurturing and rich. Replacing earth and water with concrete and steel we have raped the lands that birthed our ancestors and now we're scrambling to understand the tragic effects on our youth, and on us. We attempted to create majestic places, destroying the natural majesty of our lands, allocating small plots for nature to be preserved, demanding it to bend and be shaped to fit what we deemed necessary for our growth, our ever encroaching expansions.
(Excerpt deleted from entire article, as above)
As a people in order to survive, it is imperative that we find and preserve the natural world to the best of our ability, for so many reasons. For me it is so that my granddaughter one day can take her grandchild to the woods of my childhood and stand upon the shores of my river, the wide and beautiful Ohio and share with her the mysteries flowing there. And for each of us now, find a child in this world, ykour world, and take them by the hand and lead them to the woods, the rivers and green places of your space. Teach them there, let them be there, let them learn. Let them become the storytellers of the future in a world secured by love and grace for the natural world given to us to preserve and protect. Let us be good stewards of the gifts of our world.

The above blog is excerpted from my larger article on how to instill a respect for nature and place in children. If you would like to receive the full article to read, please feel free to email me at writestuff444@yahoo.com and I will send you a copy.

And for realistic, creative and fun ways to involve the entire family in learning how to protect our environment and our "place" I am finishing up my first educational booklet which will be ready for purchase and use in in August!! There will be recipes, crafts, activities, reader's theatre script, and an entire simple play to perform for family and friends!! A River Runs Through Me will be the title of this first series on water places!!

Please feel free to send me your story of your place or post it here in comment and reply. I would love to hear them and share them.