A dark winter river

& a tale for the winter solstice

A few solstices ago I was walking deep in the woods in search of a river. There is something about rivers that draws me in. Flowing water is a special kind of song that calls to something deeper than our human words can express. Maybe it echos the rivers of water that flow through our own bodies, calling us in, attuning our animal bodies back to the wilderness. Winter makes this encounter even more intense, the snow and ice clinging to the banks, water meeting water, blurring the lines between land and river.

Rivers in old Slavic beliefs were boundaries between the living and the dead, similar to the crossroads. The Slavic land of the dead is called navь, related to the Sanskrit word nuah and the Latin word navis, both meaning “ship”. While cremation fires were common in Slavic culture, burial grounds were also found on the banks of rivers. This is because rivers were believed to be transitory channels for both the physical and spiritual world. It was a place to transport people and goods and it was the place where the dead crossed over.

A common folk custom in Pomerania involved pouring water across bridges to keep negative spirits and souls of the dead from crossing back. Many other Slavic folk traditions converge around rivers throughout the year, such as the drowning of Marzanna (aka Winter) in spring, and the floating of flower crowns down the river during the summer solstice. The river is a place of great power and transformation.

Like most things in the natural world, the river is seen not just as a place or threshold, but as an entity in its own right. There is a tale called “The Two Rivers” that describes the rivers Volga and Vazuza, running through Eastern Europe and emptying into the Caspian Sea, as sisters.

Volga and Vazuza had a long dispute as to which was the wiser, the stronger, and the more worthy of high respect. They argued and argued, but the dispute could not be settled, so they decided upon the following course:--

"Let us lie down together to sleep," they said, "and whichever of us is the first to rise, and the quickest to reach the Caspian Sea, she shall be held as the wiser of us two, and the stronger and the worthier of respect."

So Volga lay down to sleep; down lay Vazuza also. But during the night Vazuza rose silently, fled away from Volga, chose the nearest and the straightest line, and flowed away swiftly.
  
When Volga awoke, she set off neither slowly nor hurriedly, but just as steadily as a river should flower. At Zubtsof she overcame Vazuza with such force that her younger sister was frightened. Her anger over the deceit simmered her entire meandering trip, finally overflowing once she came upon that meeting. Vazuza conceded and declared Volga the older, stronger sister and the clear winner. 

To escape her wrath, she begged Volga to remember she was her younger sister after all, and to take her in her arms and bear her to the Caspian Sea. Volga agreed, taking Vazuza on her back, both of them flowing together all the way to the open waters of the Caspian.

And so to this day Vazuza is the first to awake in the Spring, arousing Volga from her wintry sleep soon after. 

~ based on the tale by Aleksandr Afanasyev

River worship was a common practice among many cultures. This brings to mind the indigenous burial mounds discovered along the Saginaw River here in Michigan, the Egyptian worship of the Nile, and the Roman worship of the Tiber.

The rivers in Michigan are not like the open sprawling rivers of folk tales though. They are often hidden, weedy and overgrown, evidence of the fertile glacial soils. You may only notice them in glimpses between the arms of protective trees. The spaces where the river does open up are often overtaken by other humans looking for escape, though most stretches of river are privately owned, making the river even more elusive.

This is why I was out there that dark solstice day. I had wandered off the trail looking for my own slice of river to worship. I used the GPS on my phone to guess where I may be able to find some secret spot. Snow ate my boots with every step, climbing up my calves. I pushed through thickets of shrubs and unseen obstacles on the ground until I found it. A tall mass of cedars was there to greet me.

The river was quiet with the deadening effect of the snow. It gurgled peacefully over frozen logs and stones. I laid petals from the grocery store bouquet I had picked up on sale at its feet. I sat in the cold for a long spell, marveling at how the winter warms you if you stay outside long enough. I felt the slow syncing of my heart to the water. I offered unheard words to the current that quickly carried them away. It felt like I was at the liminal crossroads of river and winter.

Soon the shortest day was giving way to the longest night. The sky was low and overcast, but I could feel the cold fingers of darkness on the horizon. The air took on a bite that hadn’t been there before, a warning.

I left the river and began making my way back to the trail. Not five minutes into my trek back, I realized my phone was gone. I retraced my steps again and again, looking desperately for phone-shaped holes in the snow. Even though it was only a small area I could have lost it from the river to that point, it was gone. The snow had claimed its own sacrafice.

This was a problem not only because it was my phone, but because it was also the key to my car at the time. I felt the night leaning in closer to see what I would do next, so I eventually had to make my way back to the trailhead without it. I hoped against hope that maybe I forgot to lock the doors. Luck was not on my side.

I couldn’t drive home, but I also couldn’t call anyone to come get me without my phone. This trailhead was abandoned in the cold grips of winter. No one was here to borrow a phone from. It also happened to be one of the only times I didn’t bring Odin with me on a hike. The dark winter river was out of sight and I felt completely alone.

I started going through scenarios in my head. It was cold, getting dark, and I had no way home. There were some houses a ways away so I started walking, trying not to think about the potential of some serial killer answering my knocks.

I hadn’t even reached the main road when I saw headlights coming down to the trailhead. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was a woman with two beagles in the back seat. I asked if I could borrow her phone, then realized I didn’t know the last number of Evan’s phone number. I guessed anyways, and was wrong.

I embarrassingly asked if she could give me a ride home. She agreed, dropping me off safely, leaving me wondering how luck had so swiftly returned to me. It could have been a terrible situation, the odds were slowly mounting against me. Instead of climaxing into something worse, it glided gently back down to normalcy.

I thought of the river that night, wondering if some good water spirit had followed me back to that trailhead, flagging down this car. Why else would a woman be coming to a trail at dusk during winter? She never said and I never asked.

A year or so later I saw the woman again with her beagles at our local canoe launch in the heat of summer. We were both putting in at Chapel Dam, paddling down the same river that had delivered me safely to her many moons ago.

Seeing her here on the water reminded me of the rusalki, a Slavic water-dwelling spirit of a maiden who had died unnaturally. Many people compare them to mermaids, though they have legs instead of fins and can be either malicious, ambiguous, or on the rare occasion, helpful.

They only rise from the rivers at night and while they are known for seducing and killing young men, they are also said to love children, and even rescue the drowning. While I wasn’t physically drowning that day, it felt like the water was rising above my head in a different way.

I wanted to call out to her from my canoe, to ask if she remembered picking up a frantic woman in snow pants a couple of years ago. But for some reason I felt self conscious and unsure of who I had really seen that night. Was it actually her?

So I watched her paddle off, the river carrying her knowingly downstream. I stuck my hand in the water and the river ran lovingly through my fingers, remembering.

✵✵ Happy solstice ✵✵

Much love,

Val

P.S. Feel free to share, it’s much appreciated!

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