The Temporariness of the Temporary

I am not a big TV watcher, but a number of years back Kieth and I would always watch HBO’s True Blood over dinner on Sunday evenings. Over the course of a few episodes, a character named Lafayette begins a relationship with someone who was killed shortly thereafter. A short while later, his spirit comes back to visit Lafayette, who regrets how short a time they had. The spirit simply says something like, “I told you everything is temporary.” And I thought, wow, that seems so cold. It was like he didn’t care at all. True or not, it seemed like a cold thing to say.

In 2011, I began to learn the Native American style flute. I found a monthly circle with which to play. At the second or third circle I attended, a guest in attendance mentioned how nothing he plays was exactly the same in any two performances. Jesse, a friend who was sitting near me responded with, “You can’t stand in the same river twice.” I had never heard this phrase and was confused by it at first. Then I realized the river is the water and the water always flows. I looked this phrase up and found that it is attributed to the philosopher Hericlitus.

Now jump forward another few days and the annual Native American-Style flute festival has begun in the area in which I live. On Saturday morning, before heading to the festival for that day, I played my flute in the front yard. I could hear a faint click-chirp while playing and, while continuing to play turned to see a hummingbird by the house. It flew toward me while I played and the moved back and forth horizontally a few times before landing on a tree branch to continue watching. When I was done, the bird flew off. I enjoyed this so much, that I noted the time and came out on Sunday, figuring the bird must nest nearby and hoping for a repeat performance. But the hummingbird did not come back. Then the Hericlitus phrase popped into my mind. The wheels began to turn and this event in my life became lyrics. (A few years later, I was so fortunate to have collaboration on a song to these lyrics with Rona Yellow Robe and Bruce Witham. There is a link to the song below.)

A year after I wrote the lyrics, Kieth was diagnosed with liver and lung cancer. Three months after that, he died. At this point the lyrics became a painful thought. Everything is temporary…everything is eventually gone. Many have written on the topic of letting go, but this seemed almost impossible because, when speaking of letting go, it was easy to focus on letting go of what was and seeing it as now simply gone and leaving a void. To make this even more difficult to process, there were occurrences over the first year or so of Kieth’s absence that gave every indication he was not gone in every sense. So a new thought came to me: If everything is temporary, would not separation also be temporary? In that case, letting go of what was becomes accepting the new that is. As the chorus of The Same River Twice says, “You can’t stand in the same river twice. Yesterday’s river is this day’s rain.” If you focus on the river as a physical location, then what was is simply gone. However, if you focus on the ever-moving water, what was is now merely transformed.

We share the fate of the river and one day, we too will be transformed. Separation will then have become temporary. And if you can take a huge step back in your perspective, knowing that all is comprised of the Source, you can see all of the ongoing transformation as God dancing.

The song The Same River Twice can be found on Rona Yellow Robe’s CD, Shoot for the Moon available at ronayellowrobe.net.