09/01/2025
THE BODY OF A RIVER, THE BODY OF A HUMAN
A river is never still, even in its seeming quiet. Beneath its skin lies a pulse — the swirl of silt and current, the gathering of tributaries, the slow carving of stone. To stand beside a river is to stand beside a living being, not a backdrop or a line on a map, but kin.
For centuries, our ancestors understood this. In Ireland and across the world, rivers were honoured as deities, guardians, teachers. They were not resources but presences. They had mouths, shoulders, bellies, and bones. They dreamed, remembered, demanded respect. To kneel beside a well or ford a stream was not to cross matter but to meet a body. And when we look inward, we know this is true — for we ourselves are bodies of water, held together by a fragile skin.
Science tells us that we are more water than anything else. Over half of our weight is fluid. Our blood is salt like the sea. Our tears rise like tributaries, our heart beats like a drum inside a cavern of water. But long before measurements, our stories already knew: we are walking rivers.
Every river begins in secrecy. A spring bubbles up through stone. A trickle gathers in a hollow, until a stream is born. In Irish myth, the most sacred springs were the Wells of Segais — deep pools of wisdom shaded by hazel trees. To drink from such a well was to be changed. The goddess Boann, whose name gives us the Boyne, approached that forbidden source. The hazels dropped their crimson nuts into the water, and the Salmon of Knowledge fed upon them. To drink was forbidden, yet Boann, hungry for wisdom, did not turn away. She stepped closer. As she bent to the well, its waters rose, furious and alive, surging outward. The flood followed her as she ran, breaking open the land until the river itself was formed. The Boyne was her body, her courage, her sacrifice.
Sionann too sought the Well of Segais. Granddaughter of the sea-god Manannán mac Lir, she dared to lift the waters to her lips. At once they pulled her under, and she was drowned in their force. From her body flowed the Shannon, Ireland’s great artery, winding from the midlands to the sea.
These myths are not distant curiosities. They are maps of the headwaters of our own lives. Each of us begins in water. The womb is our first river, the amniotic tide that carries us. The soft spot on an infant’s crown, the fontanelle, is like a spring — the first opening from which life emerges. Birth itself is a sudden release of waters, a flood announcing that new life is entering the stream. To emerge gasping into air is to be like a stream suddenly freed from the hill. Across cultures, water is birth. In the Ganges, Mother Ganga flows from the locks of Shiva, bringing fertility to the plains. Among the Navajo, the breaking of waters is a sacred sign. In countless traditions, baptismal waters echo this truth — immersion as a re-entry into womb and spring, a new beginning drawn from the depths. We are born of water, and we are born into water’s stories.
Once the headwaters are released, the river flows. Tributaries branch and gather, feeding its journey just as veins and arteries branch through our flesh. Wetlands filter its breath, like lungs exhaling mist. And then there are the boglands, those deep, dark organs of the earth. If wetlands are the lungs, then bogs are the liver — slow, rich, mineral, filtering, storing, healing. They do not rush or surge; they brood and distil.
Read the full essay here: https://www.theheartofritual.com/post/the-body-of-a-river-the-body-of-a-human
This reflection is part of 'Sanctuary of the Waters: Where Beauty Comes to Rest', my Autumn / Water Element newsletter. The full letter will be shared shortly – you are warmly invited to join here: theheartofritual.com
Le Grá
Niamh
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Photograph of Esknamucky Waterfall by Nigel Wheal.
