Confluences…
Some years ago, a vision came to me one night in Peru: four rivers, flowing together to form a common centre, from which shone a luminous pink light. It was subtle, almost translucent; yet although discreet, I was aware of its importance. I interpreted it in certain ways then; I understand it in certain ways now. As all true symbols are wont to do, it has never exhausted its meaning, but rather ceaselessly points towards greater realities that provide my shifting consciousness with fresh insights and awareness.
And it has arisen again now, finding its way onto this website, albeit in a more technologically-adapted form. Based on this, I decided to call the clinic “Confluence” — a name I have since changed. Yet the symbol remains. Below is a contemplation on why “Confluence” was an appropriate name for the clinic.
What if we see the human being, the healing encounter, the clinic, as confluence?
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What is it called where two or more rivers meet?
A confluence. This word comes from Latin con- “together” + fluere “flow”: “to flow together”. Here a unity arises where before there was separation: diversity flows together as one.
Life is a ceaseless dance of patterned energy-process: arising, diverging, circulating, merging. Amidst this vast universal process are confluences, such as the human being: centres where innumerable streams — biological, psychological, spiritual, energetic — come together as one. What is the quality of this flow? How does it pour forth into the world, into our lives? How can we enable all the diverse aspects of our Self to flow together in coherency?
Both in ancient China and indigenous South America, health was likened to the free circulation of rivers. Blood, fluids, the energies of life: all must flow in harmony.
What would it be like if the rivers of our lives, both individual and collective, could flow freely, unobstructed?
In healing work, the client and practitioner must work in communion: their beings must flow together. Here a true relational field is established, and a new way forward can be found.
A confluence symbolises a meeting place; a turning point; integration and transformation. In some symbolic spiritual traditions, a confluence represents the liminal space between worlds where ritual and regeneration occur. A confluence symbolises strength in togetherness, the power of unity, and harmony between collectivity and individuality.
The Wisdom Library states: “Confluence of rivers symbolizes a return to fundamental knowledge and recognition of life within a living Earth. It represents a starting point and the source of all potential.”
A starting point… perhaps it has something in common with “origin”, after all.
May all beings flow together!
