The water is so cold it’s like a million sharp icicles stabbing into my skin. The world around me swirls as I struggle to get out of the relentless currents. I surrender to the torrents of water. I imagine how easy it would be to get lost in the currents and just fade away, it would be an easy death. I hear my heart pounding out of my chest and I feel my foot crash into a sharp rigid rock. I try to cry out but instead water fills my lungs, and it feels like fire burning me alive. My life flashes before my eyes like a slideshow, I see my friends and family and suddenly I get a rush of adrenaline. I fight to survive, and my head breaks the surface. I gasp in a breath of air after I’m done coughing up water but then I’m sucked back into the current and back under the surface. It’s almost like death has come to get me in the form of a rapid river in the mountains. My vision is getting fuzzy and my lungs feel as if I’m suffocating, because I am. I put my hand above the surface one last time as a final effort to save myself but it was too late. My vision finally dissipated and then went black. I saw my friend standing infront of me and that’s when I knew I was dead, because she had been for over a year. I was finally at peace.

High up in the mountains where thick clouds of mist linger and cover the craggy rocky cliffs. Rushing down wards, force of gravity, like boulders tumbling. A thunderous roar, a torrent of rage majestic force of nature collapsing the world beneath it.

The sound of rushing water reached their ears, carried by the cold wind that bit at their skin. As they reached the top of the great rocks before them, they saw a deep canyon. The rivers pounding force had withered away at the dirt and stone surrounding it, leaving deceiptfully smooth walls behind. One of the hunters squinted, noting the large tree trunk that drifted through the rapids. It’s roots were visible for a moment as it flipped over rocks hidden beneath churning water.

Writers block, amiright?

The water trickled down the rocks, taking pebbles with it. It was so beautiful, how something so gentle could be so destructive. The mountain stayed strong, but there was just such little time.

The river punches through the mountain side with such raw unhindered power. Power that pots fear into the heart of any creature crazy enough to challenge it. Power that carries noise that overcomes the sounds of the forest so much so that it becomes the sound of the forest. You cannot ignore it. Power that demands your attention. Power that commands your respect. Power that carves the earth and divides nations. Power that is like a beacon to all those that seek it.

Roaring, rumbling, hurtling down the hill. The sound of a thunderous herd, but no animal in sight. The water leaps and dances, skipping over half-buried rocks. Its force takes your breath away. What would it be like to slip off the muddy bank into the water? The stream is deceptively deep, the rocks sharp. Nature is both creation and destruction, embodied in this scene.

Every one has seen a moutain stream. It can be all different sizes of streams. The water could be melted snow that would be ice cold and grow big and strong as the seasons warm up. The little non existant stream with barey any flow or movement. The stream enters into fall watching the leaves change and the tempature drop. The people come less and less to visit the little stream. Winter is next to hit. The stream knows it is winter because it starts to rain more often. The stream is growing in size. The flow also increases in intenesty in the stream. Winter also could bring ice and snow on the banks or even on the top of the stream. The flow will still continue under the ice unless the stream is to thin and just freezes completely. The stream is trying to stay strong and not freeze completely. The stream is happy to stop after winding through the mouatin side. It hhas taken years or even decades to make the path through the rocky side of the mouatin. The stream is so proud as it flow through the moautain knowing that is what years of constant work can do.

We can all take a look at the little stream and take note. We should all live our lives with the understanding that no matter how long it takes we need to stick with it. It is the slow and steady tht gets the jjob done. The little stream does not get instant rewards while trying to cut through a moautian. We can all learn from the little stream.

We start at the top; rocky and befallen with a thin mask of powdered snow. The tip to the giant rock, a part of the earth long removed from the deep and enveloping crust. We travel down—down past the rock-fallen treeline and the dimple-like caves—to a sharp edge of the mountain. Cut down through no force of nature but by the mountain’s own precious metals. Chunks have been taken from the side, gashes slit with perfect curves and a monument of the beings who dared to commit such an act. A permanent scar on a defenseless, raised patch of earth.

I wrote everything down. All my pain. All my fears. It was time to let go. But how? I looked down to the water flowing near me. All I had to do was open my hand and let the water carry it all away. Knowing nature was helping me move on, let me smile and feel strong again. I opened my hand and watched as the forceful waters healed me.

Waters like a bear’s growl surged past, observing and unobserved. Specks of water flew from side to side, up and down, entering the air to be dropped down into the water from whence it came once more: fallen angels streaming with passionate power. Rocks in the stream bed cut the water left and right like marbles scattered on glass panes, making a similar scratching sound: nature’s abacus being threaded back and forth by invisible hands. Leaves from the trees nearby dropped into the water and were never seen again - floating up and down until they did not resurface, lost as if in ancient, golden desert sands. The sun shone on the water, gilding it like the mane of a lion - peaceful in observance, yet deadly once near. And year after year it continued just like this, continued with no eyes to watch it, no nose to smell it, no ears to hear it, no hands to touch it.