alone by the river in Patagonia 🌿 a quiet day in the forest

I don't really ever bring anyone here with me but today I want to share it with you. This is my secret spot. Today I am going to my favorite place in the entire world and I never really explained to anyone why this place is so very special. Before we go there we need to gather supplies for our adventure. Thankfully the juiciest loveliest cherries are still in season and I am looking forward to eating them with a cup of my favorite chai. Let me know if you'd like for me to share the recipe. Hi! I hope you're enjoying my secret river spot. There was a man over there five minutes ago. There is never anyone here and today there was a man and I hate that but he's gone now and I don't think there's anyone else coming, hopefully. I think I can say that this is the place that I've had the most supernatural experiences in. Sometimes when I sit here for a long time alone I can feel as if the spirit of the river is coming to see me. It's not like I can see it with my physical eyes. Him. It feels like a him. It's not like I can see him with my physical eyes but I can. It's like I almost can. Like I 99% can but there's like just a tiny bit that is left in the spirit world. It just kind of feels like the veil between the worlds is thinner here and also once you've sat here for a long time listening to the water, even if you're entirely alone and there is no one else because there usually is no one else, you start to hear voices in the water, like human voices and it kind of sounds like a song. It's a little unnerving but mostly like really beautiful. And also once I was here with a friend and we were having tea like deeper that way. We were sitting by like this really deep pool in the river. I was looking at her and I saw a shade just go by behind her. I almost don't want to say it here because I feel like this is their home. It's totally respectful. Totally respectful, okay. I also have this feeling when I'm out here that like the light isn't coming from any specific direction and I don't really understand like the geographical location of this spot. So to me it feels like being kind of on a different plane of existence. It's kind of like hypnotic and it just really transports you and it's really easy here. Also because there is no cell phone signal so I can't scroll. It's also really easy to like just drop into being, you know, into being yourself and I just feel like everything here, like the rocks and the river and the trees and the birds, like I feel like everything is simply itself and that is the magic of it. Here everything feels especially alive and full of spirit. The trees as they drink from the depths of the earth. The ancient rocks carrying in the bodies the old secrets of water. The river itself ever-changing and ever-same. When I come here to my favorite place in the entire world I'm instantly transported out of the everyday human existence. Fast and loud and demanding and into a cosmos where everything simply is. Where everything is, if you allow yourself to perceive it, a being. I once saw three men trolling this river for gold. I'm not sure if they ever found anything but I do know and this is going to sound cliche but it's the truth that for me the gold is the river itself. The silence, absence of all voices except the water until the water itself starts sounding like talk from another room, like secrets you can almost overhear. The deep sense of safety and solitude. Every time I come here and I brave the cold water to swing it feels like being baptized, initiated into something new by this beautiful living world. This place gives me the chance to witness, to truly imagine the lives of other beings so parallel and alien to us but just as unique and valuable. And it is sacred to me but it's far from the only place like this. I think any natural sport can become this for us if we only slow down long enough to pay attention. This is what I see when I'm swimming here. It's so cold but it's so lovely and I just don't want to leave but it's getting dark. This feels like home to me. I think if I wasn't human and I could choose I would like to be one of the trees in this place or maybe one of those big boulders. If I was a boulder I'd be Calonga so that would be cool.