River of Love. Aimée Medina Carr
the difference between the ego operating system and radical connected belonging. Grace flows underneath all that Love and stunning beauty. There is no formula, only to live with God’s Spirit that dwells within you, let go of feelings and become quiet and small, then The Great Spirit will be obvious in the very now of things.
The students from Sacred Heart School know religion domesticates God. Eliminate judgment, and the surroundings magically open up. Eliminate separation; add infinite acceptance, unlimited receptivity, and participation in something larger than yourself.
I don’t hesitate at the doorways of the Divine and move toward what is expansive and truly alive—the rush of the soul longing to know itself. It’s an undeniable force. This unity makes me question, all the nonsense about being separate or alone.
What if there was a greater reality? Jesus tried to unmask the lie in our belief of separateness. I feel a real, invisible power which is the source of all life. My future is in the hands of the Great Spirit who knows what’s best—The River and Jack. A grateful consciousness opens us up to Love and surrender. In our participative seeing, we experience spaciousness, joy, and contentment.
I feel a shift in perception when looking at whatever it is before me, instead of filling it with personal meaning or interpretation, I simply look at it, as it is. I accept life as it occurs and as it speaks to me. Whenever believing is replaced with inner sight something changes. A new realm appears. Stop thinking and just look. Delve into the Gateway of the Here and Now. Presence, attentiveness, the “is-ness” and “here-ness.” Seeing this way is why Mark Dusk’s Spirit Robin didn’t freak us out. Primal experience, the mind, mostly keeps us from that—it can also, get us there. I surrender and enter the present moment and what is right in front of me, fully—without resistance or attempts to control. The exact opposite of giving up, it is being given into.
The secret to the natural world: let go of names and all preconceptions of God. You cannot search for what you already have. Just be with Him, here, at The River of Life. Simply, receive the ever-benevolent gaze of The Presence, returning it in kind, mutually gazing. Prayer is not starting the conversation from scratch it’s plugging into one that is always in progress.
Saint Teresa of Avila believed prayer was an intimate sharing between friends, not an exercise but an encounter, not a practice but a presence, can’t control it but can create the climate for the unfolding—meeting the Beloved.
The longing and need are so great, and Grace fills the vacuum. I want to spend every free moment with Jack. I’m incredibly happy, how do we sustain this euphoria? I question if he feels the same way and ignore the nagging doubts. Jack wouldn’t hurt me, I can trust him; my feeble mantra.
Jack’s introversion, dry humor, and imposing vocabulary intimidate me. I carry a dictionary in my backpack and increase my reading volume. I conceal nervousness by projecting a confident and energetic personality. I’m pressured to be smart, witty, and exciting for fear he’ll lose interest. My goal was continuous learning and achieving intellectual heights.
11
Nobody Rides for Free
We can’t wait to tell our friends about the cute guys at the private school on the edge of town. Scarlett and Sadie Morgan moved here over the summer. They’re chic hippies with long, straight hair, stylish bell-bottom patched jeans with aromatic patchouli peasant shirts. Scarlett ties a thin, leather strap as a headband against her long, flowing cornsilk hair.
They bump into me between classes by the locker bays. “Where did you disappear to after school yesterday?” Sadie asks.
“Oh-lah, it was so trippy! We went to The River to check out this magical party place our friends from Sacred Heart School discovered.” The twins look at each other puzzled and turn to go to class. I spur-of-the-moment blurt, “Hey, wanna check it out? We can catch a ride after school. Scarlett can bring her guitar; we’ll make a fire, sing songs and get stoned.” I offer.
“Wow, that sounds fun, let’s meet in the front parking lot,” Scarlett says, her moss green eyes widen with excitement.
“Cool, I’ll arrange a ride.” I amble to my next class and realize I broke the promise to Jack to keep The River secret. Ky Kerry’s an old trusted friend whose jovial and robust hardiness and pickup get him invited. I scribble a note to him in third-period Semantics class:
Bro,
Wanna get high after school—need to bum a ride for me and the Morgan twins, I’ll take us to a beautiful River hideaway. Do me a solid, por favor.
He sits in front of me. I poke him and hand the note under the desk. Ky writes on the note:
If it’s primo weed and I can score a couple of bucks for gas for the GMC. Ass, gas or grass, nobody rides for free.
He reaches under the desk and hands it back to me.
We wait for the Morgan twins who are fresh new faces. Ky has a gleam in his eye. He’s known me since second grade; I’m like a pesky, little sister to him. He’s Irish/Italian; handsome with long, red auburn hair, burly with bearish muscles, lumpy arms, and big, doughy hands. A cherub in a Hulk body with sunshine in his pockets.
“Kinda stoked to meet these new, hot chicks, huh?” I tease. He grabs me to dole out noogies when his thick index finger accidentally, pokes me in the eye.
“Yeow! Don’t blind me, crazy Ky!” I scream. He drapes his thick arm over my shoulder. Scarlett and Sadie rush up with the guitar and backpacks. We were too distracted to notice the Sacred Heart School van driving by.
Fernando Fernandez is sitting in the passenger seat of the van, “Mira! Mira! Mira! Oh, holy shit, some guy’s hanging all over Jack’s girlfriend!” He shouts while jumping up and down in the seat. The van’s full of scared freshman clueless to why the Mexican dude is so frantic.
We pile into Ky’s blue, 1968, GMC pickup, and tool down the road. He parks at the dead-end entrance of The River. Scarlett lugs the guitar and follows me down the path thick with bushes and reeds. “Geeze, you need a machete to get through here,” she whined.
I’m anxious Jack and Caleb might appear but relieved to find Oliver alone at The River. He lounges by a cozy fire basking in the mellow, fall day. He excitedly runs up to us, “Hey, what a surprise. How did you know about this place?” I explain Jack and Caleb brought Cha Cha and me, swearing us to secrecy.
“So much for that!” I roll my eyes.
“No worries, the more Merry Pranksters, the better, let’s get loaded.” He cheered.
“You know the rap: ‘No pigs, no parents, no priests, and no hassles!” His high-pitched giggle echoes through the campsite.
Sadie pulled out a thick, fat joint. Morgan sisters come from a large bohemian, hippie family. Their mother is a free-spirited, gypsy divorcée. The fraternal twin girls are inseparable with different personalities. Scarlett’s a petite, lively extrovert full of zing, a flaxen-haired mini Joni Mitchell. Sadie’s thin, coltish, with long, thick chestnut brown hair, a sweet shy introvert. Both have magnificent moon-shaped eyes—Scarlett’s green, Sadie’s blue.
They’re priestess of music that play guitar, piano, sing, and harmonize beautifully. Their presence at The River was as natural as the deer and stunning as the sparkling sacred cottonwoods growing along the banks.
Oliver fires up the joint, “Please play; it’s so far out to have music in this blissful haven.” Glee lights up his bird-like eyes. “I was so bummed out before you showed up. I suffer such a rash of shit from the jocks and stomps at my school. I come to The River to purge the negativity and replace it with pure Love.” He tilts his head, closes his eyes and smiles.
Oliver stretches out his legs