eternal joy and never-ending splendor
Last night on my walk home from a friend's house I chose my route along Galway's River Corrib rather than the city centre, avoiding the throngs leaving the pubs and enjoying the rush of water running out into the sea.
A river, a stream, pond, an ocean; all so relaxing, but all so different in meaning and reason for the emotional response they evoke.
I told someone once, while making the same walk, that I like rivers because they are water's example of continuous flow; never ending -- the water doesn't really have a destination -- it won't stop when it gets somewhere -- it's just flowing. And you can think of one small piece of water moving along toward the sea, or you can look at one point in the river and see that different water is continually passing through it.
Where has that piece of water travelled from?
But water doesn't travel in pieces -- not even droplets -- for certain, but is rather one mass constantly changing, molding, fitting. But does it travel in molecules? Has this H2O molecule been to Madrid, to India? But reactions are changing the molecules constantly. What is the normal "lifespan" of a molecule? Of an atom? Do the electrons move from atoms so constantly too? Not only has this electron been to India, but it has been a piece of New Delhi soil, then a part of a young Indian boy's wooden flute, then so quickly danced through air, bird, house, and finger until I see it float by in the Galway river...
How spectacular and dynamic, then, is our world - our universe - our very bodies?