Where Rivers Collide: A Real- Life Metaphor

Reading Time: 3 minutes

By Michael Avery

If you’ve ever driven from Roseburg, Oregon, up to Crater Lake, you’ve passed the Colliding Rivers viewpoint at Glide. This is the only place in the world where two rivers meet head on, according to the sign posted at the viewpoint.

The North Umpqua River is swift and powerful. On the other hand, Little River is calm and gentle. One day, I realized what an amazing metaphor Colliding Rivers represents. I even wrote a short parable about it.

I had passed the Colliding Rivers viewpoint many times while growing up in Southern Oregon, but had never stopped. One day I did. While enjoying the beautiful fall morning, I contemplated on the differences between the mighty North Umpqua River and gentle Little River. It struck me that Colliding Rivers was a real-life example of the Law of Polarity, or the Law of Opposites.

There exists in this life both good and bad, happy and sad, up and down, etc. There are no mountains without valleys. What would the world be like without valleys? I wondered. And how do we reconcile opposite polarities in our own lives? When opposites meet, what happens?

In the case of these two rivers, there is a harmonious merging. Mutual respect and balance come to mind. Only during very rare storm events is the meeting of the two rivers violent.

The metaphor of the merging of the North Umpqua and Little River affected me so profoundly that I used Colliding Rivers as a setting in some of my writings. The following parable came to me one day while contemplating the metaphor of the two rivers.

WHERE RIVERS COLLIDE

Two rivers run through the Enchanted Forest: the mightly North Umpqua and gentle Little River. The Umpqua is swift and surprising in power. Its shorline is rocky. It winds its way between towering cliffs.

Little River flows with a quiet grace through bountiful orchards and lush green meadows. Children play on its sandy beaches.

Both rivers are blessed with the same rare fish, but their differences are striking. The fish of the Umpqua have red eyes, while the eyes of those in Little River are emerald green. The red-eyed fish are spirited and aggressive. They swim alone and exceedingly deep.

The fish in Little River swim in groups near the tranquil surface. But unlike their brothers, they are passive by nature.

My friend and mentor, a man I called “the Chief,” once made the acquaintance of an old fisherman with a long white beard. Together they would sit at Colliding Rivers. One stormy winter evening he told the Chief this story:

“When I was but a child,” the old man began. “I met a skillful fisherman from a distant land. He had a mystery about him and a strange belief. He believed that ideas were not merely ideas. He believed they were the objects, themselves. Their physical counterparts, he claimed, were their three-dimensional shadows.

“He believed that these rare fish live in the minds of men and that all of the disharmony in the world could be traced to their differences. It was his belief that the union of the fish in our two rivers produce the truth that all men seek.”

The old man sat rigidly, staring out into space, as if remembering something both wondrous and at the same time terrifying.

“When the fisherman left me,” the old man whispered hoarsely, “he cast no shadow, and the fish dangling from his belt gazed back at me with an eye that was red and an eye that was green.”

The old man came out of his reverie and smiled. “There is a peacefulness here,” he said; then almost as an afterthought added quietly, “in this place of power.”

Few people fish where the rivers collide, for no one can be sure whether the old man casts his line out in wonder, or whether he casts it out in fear.

Parable is from Porcupines at the Dance, page 9