River

The river is the flow of life — of time, of feeling, of destiny. Greek myth gives us the Styx, crossed only once, and Lethe, the river of forgetting. Hindu tradition holds the Ganges as the goddess Ganga, whose waters wash away karmic residue. Jungian analysis treats rivers as the currents of the psyche in motion. Following a river is different from crossing one: following is a kind of surrender to the flow; crossing, a decisive transition. Notice the speed of the current, whether you swim, wade, or are carried, and whether the water is clear or dark.