The Waterfall
I watched from the shore,
A waterfall–
Shimmering, glistening, reflecting
an array of colors in the moonlight.
The waterfall splashed and spit,
Tumbled down,
A beast–
Shattering in fright at the dark bottom,
leaving an echo throughout the waters below.
Fighting the boulders
And treacherous currents
The beast–
Awaiting the continuous adventure
Towards the calm, shy cascading of the river and its eerie quietness.
Where the Manifestation First Began
I wrote this poem around age 14 or 15 and won a small scholarship for it in my local hometown. I may have written better poetry since then, but one thing is certain, my love for waterfalls has been a lasting one. As long as I can remember I wrote short stories and drew pictures of waterfalls.
In fact, I’m holding in my hand the faded lined and three-hole punched stapled story called “The Deadly Waterfall” that I likely wrote around 7th grade. It’s marked with a black felt tip pen by my teacher. I proudly earned a 29/30 on this paper, with a special note on that back page that reads, “Excellent story- Good job of developing plot, conflict, and climax!!” I can’t recall the teacher, but I thank him or her for the notes and the opportunity to write of my own free will. Who knew that my love of waterfalls as a young person would transform into something bigger, in fact becoming a large part of my adult life.
The Great Find
My business Waterfall Yoga came about in 2014 when I was getting my LLC. We had just bought a 20-acre plot of land outside of Huntsville, Alabama, nestled in what they call the Hurricane Valley at the foot of what the locals lovingly referred to as, “Tator Knob.” When I stepped onto the land for the very first time after accidentally taking a detour down a well-wooded road, off the beaten path, I heard the soothing sound of rushing water. There wasn’t a day on this search to find land, that it hadn’t rained that December in 2013.
I looked out at the green pasture in front of me and the vast view of mountainside and felt an easefulness, I’m not sure I’d ever felt. In that moment taking in the majesty of the land in all its glory, the clouds parted, the blue sky peeked through, and the sun’s rays lit up the flatland. All but angels singing, and now that I reflect, maybe they were singing, just like the birds in the trees. The realtor later hiked the land that we had chosen that January and found a frozen waterfall, which we were all surprised to find sitting hidden at the back of the property.
The excitement to create our home on this land was strong even then, but we had many years to go at the hands of our military assignments before we could call it our forever home. At the time, we saw it as an investment, a place we could land if nothing better came along. In the end, nothing else measured up quite the same, as the way we both felt on this particularly magical piece of property in northeast Alabama.
The Realization of Fruitful Manifestation
It wasn’t until many years later, when I was in a deep meditation called Inner Sanctuary with my teacher Durga Leela, that I found my mind and awareness lying in a green field beside a rushing waterfall. This sanctuary was a place I’ve frequented in my mind for decades, long before the land purchase. But that day in 2018 at an Ashram in Austin Texas, a lightbulb clicked on in my mind. All my life, my subconscious had been asking for the peace that I received through this connection to waterfalls. The peace I now feel when I am home. I can’t even begin to describe how I feel when I think about the power of our mind, the power of the Universe, the power of God and Creator. The vast plans and the interwoven moments that determine and lay the path to our unforeseen and unpredictable futures.
Symbolism
As the poem notes, waterfalls are capable of great power. I’ve watched my own waterfall be a beast as it forced debris into my yard during a 6” inch rain, pushing large boulders into the field that we would later have to move by hand to protect our mower from ruin. In contrast, I’ve seen the waterfall serene and peaceful and capable of calming my distraught nerves on the worst of days. I have seen it shimmer and glisten in the sunlight as I watched in meditative stillness as a leaf floats downstream.
Just like me, the waterfall has the capacity to be powerful, harsh, creative, yet also soft, gentle, and thoughtful. It ebbs and flows and changes through the weather and the seasons as well as the cycles of day and night. Even the creatures that seek comfort there vary with the passing of time. I often wonder how much this waterfall differs from the time when the Native American’s roamed this land to this very moment. Always, curious to know if I am doing it justice in the caretaking of the land as they did.
The Energy
There is peace here on this land like no other place I have ever visited. And I have walked the grounds of Ashrams, Shinto Shrines, Buddhist Temples, and the most beautiful Cathedrals in Rome. My clients often claim they feel the peace even before they arrive, as if the valley has a story to tell and is preparing them for entry into the sacred space.
My husband says when he returns from a work trip, he can feel within his nervous system the calm of coming home, even from the body of an airplane. When we share the space during a retreat, or a gathering, a reunion of family and friends, they each comment on the serenity they feel while here, and a hesitation or grief to leave. They express a yearning to stay and the hope to take some of the peace they received back to where they are headed.
Maybe it’s the energy our ancestors placed on the land. Possibly it is the love and a real manifestation of a dream my husband and I have conjured over time with the help of our Christian faith and one all-knowing God. It may also be the science of the “waterfall effect,” the result of a high concentration of negative ions that produce the biochemical reactions of an increase in the feel-good chemical, serotonin. Or the white noise the falls produce that down-regulates the amygdala, the brain’s fear center, causing such a physiological response.
Manifest Destiny
I truly believe my life’s calling wasn’t a coincidence, but a spiritual awakening to the true power of our body, mind, and spirit. When we are connected to a deeper part of ourselves, potentially through nature, we can access the quiet in our minds, and we enter a space of healing opportunity. The waterfall became a symbol of so many things in my personal life and in the formation of my yoga therapy business.
The waterfall is a living entity that mirrors our human nervous system. Much like our nervous system, the waterfall holds the ability to be fierce and disruptive, turbulent like our sympathetic nervous system when in fight or flight response. In opposition, both the falls and the central nervous system can be a source of grounding, a calm and easeful sanctuary. My work as a yoga therapist, allows me to help a client navigate the chaos and provide the tools needed to return to the peaceful safety of nervous system regulation.
Waterfall Yoga Therapy and Retreat Center
Waterfall Yoga Therapy has evolved into something much more than a place to access healing. It is a place where nature and somatic physiology combine to wash away the debris that life lays at our feet and restore our spirit to its true nature. Whether you visit for a private yoga therapy session or a weekend retreat, the ancient land aims to be the bridge back to embodiment, just as nature intended.
But, if you can’t make it to visit anytime soon, you don’t have to wait. You can access the quiet sacred sanctuary within, by closing your eyes and visualizing your own inner peaceful place just as I did decades before I found my own Heaven on Earth. When you arrive at your sanctuary what does it look and sound like? What does it smell like? How does your body feel to be in this place within your mind? Be here as long as you would like, imagining your sanctuary in great detail. When the beast of life and the treacherous currents are carrying you in a direction you don’t wish to go, remember that a steady stream of quietness waits further downstream. Whenever you are ready to find that peace in person our valley is waiting for you.
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