THE RIVER

Relationships feed on time. Attachment, skill and yes, love, build as a direct outcome of time spent together. Between people it’s called limbic resonance. Between people and wildness it’s called home. As Marci, Skye and I have wandered across four continents together; I’ve come to better appreciate this. Our southern Chile experience – and especially Futaleufu – brought together three things most dear to me: rivers, sustainability (my vague, potent notion) and most of all family. The Futaleufu and its tributaries the Azul and Escalon, are all five star beauties – pristine, free-flowing, class big, fish-filled, and threatened 21st century anomalies. Major dams are proposed all over southern Chile as it is one of the few places left on earth with lots of water and very few people. The tension between the (clean) energy demands of our industrial growth model and places like Futaleufu and its indigenous inhabitants mounts with each passing day. This is a microcosm of the intellectual and moral challenge of our time. On this river I kayak, along with Marci and Skye, returning to the company of dear friends at the Bio Bio river camp where around the campfire we sing songs, debate, laugh, look deep into the fire’s dancing light and touch the experience of human being at its core.