river plants: water hyacinth

This is an invasive species form South America that is illegal to transport in Texas! But it's all over the San Marcos. It's very pretty, it's a shame it hurts the habitat. So do the toobers though.

I heart the public library

Found all these treasures during a browse through the stacks. I had a riverful weekend at home.

sparkling river night

Water is the great conductor of energy - electrical, spiritual....rivers are currents of nature energy. I'm convinced the river charges everyone's experience who's on it - floating in a boat, an inner tube, or sitting by the banks - the constantly-flowing current of the river draws energy unto it and naturally charges the air with the nature hum of spirit energy.

For this reason people go to the river to party - they are naturally drawn to the invigorated energy of the riverspace. That's why you always find beer cans on the banks and in the eddies of Texas rivers. That's why tubers on the Guadalupe always drink, that's why cajuns party at the waterbank, and don't forget those Mississippi riverboats. On the same token, cities with rivers coursing through them are naturally spiritually charged. Wouldn't you say all the major cities of the world straddle a river?
Paris Exposition and the Nile:

Just for the sheer sapiness, here is a clip from the classic chick flick Chocolat in which Johnny Depp is very sexy on a gypsy riverboat. Skip to 3:35 for Johnny.

Mythic River of Childhood: Ratty's River

"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats...or with boats....In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

"Absorbed in the new life he was entering upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the scents and the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a paw in the water and dreamed long waking dreams."

The Wind in the Willows



"As he sat on the grass and looked across the river, a dark hole in the bank opposite, just above the water's edge, caught his eye, and dreamily he fell to considering what a nice snug dwelling-place it would make for an animal with few wants and fond of a bijo riverside residence, above flood level and remote from noise and dust."

"And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!"
"By it and with it and on it and in it," said the Rat. "It's brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing."




"When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, and planted the Mole in an arm-chair in front of it, having fetched down a dressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till supper-time. Very thrilling stories they were, too, to an earth-dwelling animal like Mole. Stories about weirs, and sudden floods, and leaping pike, and steamers that flung hard bottles--at least bottles were certainly flung, and from steamers, so presumably by them; and about herons, and how particular they were whom they spoke to; and about adventures down drains, and night-fishings with Otter, or excursions far a- field with Badger. Supper was a most cheerful meal; but very shortly afterwards a terribly sleepy Mole had to be escorted upstairs by his considerate host, to the best bedroom, where he soon laid his head on his pillow in great peace and contentment, knowing that his new-found friend the River was lapping the sill of his window.

This day was only the first of many similar ones for the emancipated Mole, each of them longer and full of interest as the ripening summer moved onward. He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of running water; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind went whispering so constantly among them. "

The description of Ratty's river abode has stuck with me since reading it as a little girl (and re-reading it many times as an adult). The river lifestyle............

River Summer

The San Marcos River, San Marcos Texas

This already hot and miserable summer has herded me towards

the swimming holes and cool, springfed rivers of Texas

and in honor of this annual migration

I am focusing on rivers all summer,
exploring their mystical significance and magical power.