when two rivers meet

As a raft guide in British Columbia, I learned the term 'confluence,' the place where two rivers, two bodies of water meet. As a Gestalt therapist, I learned that 'confluence' referred to one of the 'contact boundary disturbances' - how two individuals might forego their respective experiences of autonomy so that they can merge. I looked online and noted that the term is used more generally for any coming or flowing together, a meeting place.

On the river, I recall the feeling of readying myself and my craft to hold steady and stay upright with the swelling of force that happened when the Thompson River merged with the mighty Fraser. The eddy line, the place of encounter could jolt, twist, spin, and create chaos for me if I wasn't prepared - eventually I learned that the biggest part of prepared is being relaxed, ready to respond and receive and adjust. I wondered if the Thompson, itself, wasn't also preparing upstream for the inevitable meeting, as though the wisdom of the Whole whispered a kind of intelligence into the seemingly separate parts. I remember being in awe of the way the textures, colours, rhythms, flows, temperatures, and sounds danced and mixed at the confluence.

Some days I imagined that the Thompson was attempting to hold its distinctness for a mile or more downstream. Eventually, it's clearer, warmer, slower blue would yield to the larger, colder, muddier, and more forceful Fraser. I did not realize until this moment that the Thompson River 'ended' at the Fraser. The larger river continues south to Hope, British Columbia and then swings west to Vancouver, itself eventually surrendering its energy to the larger Pacific Ocean.

This week I spun, twisted, danced, and dropped into the confluence which marries psychotherapy and bodywork. There are many more metaphors I could mix in attempt to articulate my experience: I simultaneously had a feeling of landing and recognizing that my feet were firmly underneath me as well as the sense that the resultant force of two such immense energies coming together was more than I could ride - like rocket fuel. I felt both peacefully 'at home' as well as buoyantly born into a wild and wonderful new land that was awaiting my arrival with excitement and anticipation.

Somewhat uncharacteristically, prior to coming to this program, I had not researched the theory (landscape, history, language, practices, and rituals) of this new territory to any great extent (sorry, Dad). Before committing to this adventure in Portugal, my understanding of bodywork-psychotherapy was limited to experiences I had personally (as well as witnessed) as a participant in programs at The Haven (www.haven.ca) and some mutations of therapy on a bodyworker's table. I also credit Wayne Allen and the Phoenix Centre (www.phoenixcentre.com) for bridging his own trainings and intuitions and pursuing greater integrity in the field of counselling and personal growth. I have a great deal of respect for folks like Wilhelm Reich and Ida Rolf and countless others who have strayed away from the main trail and cut a path for people like me to continue moving forward. It's striking that even in this age, more than a century after Freud, I feel squeamish when I describe my reason for being in Portugal and the passion I feel for weaving body intelligence into psychotherapy in a more hands-on way.

At 40 years old, I decided it was time to grow up and that, for me, growing up included taking responsibility for my instincts and em-bodying my passions. I've been aware for a few years that my hands 'throb' with energy and heat, that I long to place these hands at the ends of my arms on the bodies of people around me. At times, my hands have surprised me by seeming to have a life of their own, a 'mind of their own,' and a will sometimes in discord with my mind which likes to keep things safer, more controlled, more known.

This week I had my first experience of working with touch and migrating the territorial boundary between massage and psychotherapy. Unlike the upheaval I've experienced on the eddy line of the Thompson and Fraser rivers, the confluence was an effortless merging. And yet the force, the surge of power I felt in the experience was breathtaking; the whole seemingly greater than the sum of its parts - using the word 'power' here not to refer to my power but the power I felt I tapped into riding the alchemical combustion of emotional energy meeting physical touch and movement. Quite a wave.

Anywhoo. I'm stoked. I'm a lot excited. I'm a little intimidated. I don't know where this is going, don't have a picture of how this training experience will manifest theoretically, logistically, professionally, or personally - it remains part of the Mystery, the big Unknown. Yesterday I noticed I got a moving ache in my head as my mind tried to lasso the energy I was feeling pumping through my body, trying to make sense of where it/I was going rather than just ride it through. I'm glad it's the weekend so that I can breathe into a little space, a little time to integrate, get quiet, find stillness to support all this movement.

This week I also crossed the half-way threshold of the program. Six weeks remain in Portugal. On the edge of my seat to learn more most days. Other moments, ready to return to the gentler, more familiar rhythms of home. Guess I'm big enough to hold the confluence of these two rivers also. Everything, afterall, eventually finds its way back to the sea.