“There is much to learn from rivers, how they gather their waters from the heights, accepting all streams that enter them, collecting them into one body which they then carry to the sea.
“Every part of the world once had such a river, and for every river there was a people. People never believed before that they could live far from a river. They made their homes within a few days journey away. Partly this was for water, and partly it was because rivers were the life of the planet. They wished to remain close enough to that life to feel its pulse, and in this way retained their connection to the earth.
“Originally, a people was a river and the river was its people. Sometimes they called the river a god, but this did not mean to them what it means to you today. For a river belongs to one people and one people to a river, and they travel together through time.
“This is lost knowledge that must be regained if you wish to continue living on Earth. No knowledge you currently possess surpasses this knowledge. Only a fool would presume otherwise, but there are many fools. Be not among them.
“Return to the old ways of knowing and being on the earth. I will teach you these things and you will learn them easily, because you are only remembering what you have forgotten.”
[photo: the Dordogne River in France where evidence of hominid habitation goes back 300,000 years]