By Scott Yeager for GANT News
The Pennsylvania Wilds is a classroom unlike any other. Our forests, mountains and valleys possess an ancient wisdom that is accessible to all who seek it. If you are in search of something truly insightful, you need look no further than in the lowest of places.
The waterways of the Pennsylvania Wilds exist to remind us of a great many things, and to an even greater extent, places like the Bennett’s Branch of the Sinnemahoning, the West Branch of the Susquehanna, Parker Dam, Curwensville Lake, the Sandy Lick Creek, the Clarion River and the Allegheny can reveal valuable insight into living well.
It has been said that under the heavens nothing is as soft or as yielding as water; yet for attacking the strong and solid, there is nothing better.
Proof of this can be witnessed in the many deep valleys that have been carved over millennia in our region. Upon first glance at the massive cliffs that surround the Allegheny, the Clarion, the Sinnemahoning and the West Branch of the Susquehanna, one is tempted to think that it is the cliffs that contain the river and its waters.
Upon closer examination, it is the gentle water that flows which created its enclosure. The waters move in accord with the stone and soil; yet over time, it is the stone and soil which yield to the persistent grace. There is a reward for those who take the time to contemplate their surroundings and their situation.
At the headwaters of the Clarion River and in many other places such as the Sinnemahoning, we can learn another important lesson from the waters that help design and nourish the Pennsylvania Wilds.
In certain places where rock and water collide or where water encounters fallen timber, we see how the waters respond to obstacles.
When a creek, stream or river encounters an obstacle, you will hear a soothing music more profound in its logic than any ever crafted by the hands of renowned composers.
In the face of resistance, the waters of the Pennsylvania Wilds harmonize and adapt – creating something subtle, yet so dominant that it nearly drowns out other sounds.
Add the whisper of the winds that dance through hemlocks and narrow valleys, as well as the celebratory hymns of songbirds, and you have an utter symphony born from conflict and opposition.
Water truly reveals its character when it encounters opposition. People often reveal their character in the same fashion; sadly, we don’t always respond in harmonious ways.
No force in Nature is a better teacher to human beings on the virtues of adaptation and change than the waters of the Pennsylvania Wilds.
If you seek to better yourself, you need not scale a mountain – rather, you should endeavor to seek lower places for it is there that you will discover your higher latitudes.
There is great fury in a single raindrop; however, there is also a gift to all life – just ask our thriving forests. As a final lesson, the waters of the Pennsylvania Wilds provide us with a logic that is superior to living a good life.
When water strikes a rock, it flows downward to meet a creek. It becomes a creek. The creek flows into a lake and out again. Water becomes a lake. Eventually, it encounters a river and becomes a river.
All along its path to the greater bays and oceans, it changes and adapts, becoming something bigger and more beneficial to all life as it goes.
We should all be so fortunate to realize that our lives are just as meaningful as the drop of rain that became a roaring ocean. Be like water, my friends.