January/February 2010 Spirituality
Rowing with the Flow

by Noel McInnis

When the flow of your body and mind are equally aligned with one another, and you are aligned with your life’s reality, you can experience optimal well-being.

To flow is to live in optimum harmony and alignment with all of your inner and outer experiences. Harmonious alignment differs from the flotation prescribed by the often heard advice to “go with the flow,” because such drifting invariably compromises the inner flow of your own unique being. Hence Thomas Jefferson’s prescription: “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

For example, if surfers did no more than go with the flow, they would be routinely dumped by every wave they encounter rather than ride it out. While flotation is passive, flowing (like surfing) is proactive, as shown by the familiar children’s song for effective self-navigation: “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.” Many people overlook this song’s recognition that even downstream travel (and for surfers, downwave travel) requires that we row to the rhythm of our own flow in appropriate alignment with the flow of our experiences.

Just as fish regulate their flow-state with bodily undulations that aid in their upstream, cross-stream and downstream navigation, you are most effective when you likewise continually steer the flow of your inner being to accommodate the changes in your life. Full flow of your uniqueness requires mindful self-navigation, regardless of the direction that is taken by your outer stream of circumstances and inner stream of consciousness.

An example of such mindful self-navigation is presented in Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Maelstrom,” about a shipwrecked sailor who becomes caught in the swirling waters of a gigantic North Atlantic whirlpool. Like a sailboat tacking into a headwind, he leveraged himself in an Aikido-like manner across the flow of the swirling water, and thus maneuvered himself out of the whirlpool. Life is often like a headwind that requires you to align your flow accordingly.

I found this out one afternoon as I sought solace along a creek that tumbled and meandered down a mountain slope into Colorado’s Roaring Fork river. As I ascended along the creek’s course, I noted the stark contrast between its turbulent and calm passages, which mirrored the stream of my own consciousness and the uneven rhythm of my own life.

I sat down with pen and paper in hand as if to take dictation, and asked for the creek’s advice: "If you were literate, what message would you have for me?"

The creek responded as if it could indeed talk, and this is what I heard it say to me:

Be,
as water is,
without friction.
Flow around the edges
of those within your path.
Surround within your ever-moving depths
those who come to rest there —
enfold them, while never for a moment holding on.
Accept whatever distance
others are moved within your flow.
Be with them gently
as far as they allow your strength to take them,
and fill with your own being
the remaining space when they are left behind.
When dropping down life's rapids,
froth and bubble into fragments if you must,
knowing that the one of you now many
will just as many times be one again.
And when you've gone as far as you can go,
quietly await your next beginning.

Receiving this verbal flow-through was a born-again experience, and whenever I have since had feelings of anguish, I remember the creek’s prescription to be as water is. What I remember most of all is that what emerges from my own flow is enough to get me safely through any turbulence that arises around or within me.

The “Flow” poem has been given a graphic setting by Portland area artist Lynne Taylor, and a musical setting by Portland choral conductor David York, both of which may be enjoyed at (URL forthcoming). Like this article’s author, Lynne and David are members of the Beaverton spiritual community, New Thought Center for Spiritual Living (www.newthoughtcls.org). New Connexion readers are invited to the Center’s celebration of Flow-being on Wednesday evening, November 15, from 1-3 p.m. at (address forthcoming), as well as to The Center’s weekly 9 and 11 a.m. Sunday services also held at this address.