Underland (Day 17)

Most likely today, the river will stop being a clear body of water that I can follow. Bits are already running underground, into the Underland. The Underland is what Robert Mcfarlane calls the dark spaces underground. Past the deposits of sediments through which the tree roots reach, to the caves and caverns under our feet. Some call the Underland Hades. It is the realm of deep time. Of stillness and darkness with no direction. The place to which all surface dwellers are consigned when they die. It is in the Underland that water takes its time. It sinks into the earth where it wears away great porous rocks into open spaces and creates lakes and rivers without skies. It works in drips, taking millions of years to build intricate formations of minerals into stalagmites and stalactites. From the source spring, the water comes crashing out, fast flowing and awake after many years of meditating in the dark. The ‘sources’ of rivers, then are the meeting points of the Underland and Overland, with the stones that mark them Standing as shrines, guardians and gatekeepers between the realms.
It is in this part of the walk that I begin to contemplate my own death. The river is beginning to branch off into smaller streams and I feel my strength dwindling also. I know that there will be a moment when I will die and pass through into the dark. And to know and honour the spirits of the in-between, of which the Source stone is one, feels like a rehearsal for a graceful death.

pen on paper