{"id":3515024,"date":"2025-07-24T09:11:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T09:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/?p=3515024"},"modified":"2025-07-24T09:11:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T09:11:27","slug":"is-a-river-alive-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2025-07-24\/is-a-river-alive-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Is a River Alive? Review…."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bookcover\"Notes upon finishing\u00a0Is a River Alive<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

Spoiler alert! Please, don\u2019t read any further if you want to read the book\u2026<\/p>\n

Also, this is kinda rough\u2026 still haven\u2019t completely lassoed the brain back into coherence\u2026 consider this essay poetry\u2026 because that\u2019s my natural language\u2026<\/p>\n

\n

To my mind, the titular question,\u00a0Is a River Alive<\/em>, remains unanswered when you close the book. The book winds down three rivers and concludes that there is some sort of spirit, some god of the river \u2014 elaborately anthropomorphized in the last case \u2014 and it\u2019s that spirit that gives life to the river.<\/p>\n

Well, perhaps that\u2019s true\u2026 but then again, no, not at all. It\u2019s not the spirit of a river, if there is a spirit, that makes a river alive or not. It certainly is not a disembodied deity with humanoid characteristics guiding the river through life. The river is not alive because it has a spirit. The river is alive because the river is a body\u2026 and bodies live.<\/p>\n

Life is not a celestial spark, a great grey mystery. Life is what you see, what you feel, what you smell, what you live. Life\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0the body. Life\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0the river. It is the river in relationship with myriad other bodies located in a particular time and place. It is the solid process of river-being, growing and decaying and eating and flowing. That process, those systems of embodied relationship, that is life. A river is alive for those reasons, not because all those systems may or may not produce something we, humans, name a spirit, a mind that hovers in smug superiority over the body. Life is not in the mind. Life is in the body.<\/p>\n

That is why the nine-year-old can answer the question immediately in the affirmative, but a grown-up has to prevaricate for an entire book and still not come to the logical conclusion. A nine-year-old deals in material facts and experienced life and has not yet learned to explain away the natural world in order to render most of it into things to be expropriated. A grown-up sees the fantastical ideas of man looming over the world, casting all into shadow, sees personhood only in the immeasurable and unobservable spirit, sees a river and looks for the controlling god behind it.<\/p>\n

Or maybe I\u2019m just feeling grumpy this week\u2026<\/p>\n

In a weird way, the banal finish to a book that had promise dovetails with my health woes. Just as a river is not a living being because there is some hovering spirit, health is not a matter of the mind \u2014 no matter how much we tell ourselves that mind will prevail over matter. (Whatever that\u2019s supposed to mean\u2026) Health is a bodily state. It is sum of the physical and biological and chemical relationships inherent in this body. Health is not generalized. It is this specific body, for every body. In the world of reality there are no universal panaceas for ill health, no cure-alls, no magic pills, because each set of relationships is unique to its time and place. Attempts to treat a body as anything but an individual will fail, because ill health is not a generalizable thing across many bodies. It is the sum of specific relationships. I have spent nearly a month being treated mostly like a generic condition\u2026 and that is working out so very well\u2026<\/p>\n

How does that relate to rivers? Well, the principal thing described in this book is not whether a river is alive, whether it is a living being, but how a river is dying. Or dead. This is an autopsy. And it seems to be rather generalized, despite visiting just a few bodies of water. The focus is widened to become a general river, not this specific river and all its specific bodily relationships. But if you want to know how a river lives, or if it lives at all, then you must look at that river and all its particulars. And that is a very long book indeed\u2026<\/p>\n

Robert Macfarlane does not talk much about the specific relationships within and around the rivers he describes. He talks much of human impact. Somewhat less of bird, mainly in the interest of accounting for what was there, not how they were there, how they lived, how they managed relationship with that epically fucked up thing that is a human-mediated river. I\u2019ll grant him that that story, learning how that place worked, that story takes time and probably fills more than a chapter in a popular \u201cnature writing\u201d book. To know that story is to be submerged in it for many seasons, many generations. It is to drink the water and breathe the air. It is to recognize individuals. It is to diagnose the relationships of ill health and of well being. It is to be in that relationship, to experience it. Then, and only then, can you talk about the cure\u2026 which is simply to give the river back its life\u2026 to release those lives from bondage under humanity and its ideas\u2026<\/p>\n

While talking of the human impact in rather starkly aggressive imagery, he fails to make that connection. He neither answers the question nor addresses any sort of possible care for the dying\u2026 because, well, you can\u2019t get to that story in a book. This process of writing a book about places and relationships other than your own, outside your experience, as an objective observer observing objects, this process can not tell the story of how it is to be those places, those people, those beings, those lives. More than that, this process of writing is a driver in all the devastation he so graphically describes in print. Maybe but one Cause in the millions, but magnified exponentially by all the systems that must be in place to make possible the process of writing a book about a dying river. All such systems being Cause of Death\u2026<\/p>\n

For Macfarlane to be able to write and earn money from that writing, there must be all the toolkit to writing \u2014 from paper and computers to background research facilities, and all the attendant systems behind all that. There must be a publishing industry and printing and paper manufacturing and logging and distribution and transport all around the globe at every step. To make a living wage, there must be many books produced and sold, which necessitates both high production and huge waste streams of the unsold remainders \u2014 most of which are made in such toxic processes that mere paper will poison wherever it is dumped, defying both recycling measures and organic breakdown.<\/p>\n

To write this particular book, Macfarlane was required to travel extensively, personally burning barrels of fuel. He required kilos of specialized gear which may or may not have been re-used, but certainly had to be manufactured and in place when he needed it. Everything from plastic sheeting for rain protection to carbon-fiber kayaks. He required many people to be his guides and assistance in this project. From visas and vaccinations and travel logistics to specialists who could get his middle-aged and inexperienced body into extremely foreign locations \u2014 and, more importantly, out again. He required transport nearly every step of the way \u2014 except for a very few actual steps at critical moments in the narrative. If no transport then no book. (And yet he spent pages of that book decrying the infrastructure of roads and airports required to support that transport.)<\/p>\n

Maybe most importantly, certainly most invisibly, he required a whole network of systems and lives to tend to his needs while he was off doing the book process. In his long absences, someone took care of his kids, his house, his expenses and obligations. Someone produced food for his own body and for the bodies he left behind. He also left behind the emotional work of being in relationship. All the texting, phoning and zooming in the world is insufficient to form bonds with your loved ones, because there is naught but the most nebulous bond in the absence of bodily relationship.<\/p>\n

It all rankled me. To ask such a question, to give voice to the idea that other forms of being might have the intrinsic worth that is inherent in life, and then fall prey to such banal failure to connect cause with effect, bodily needs with all the the requirements necessary to meet those needs, individual acts within this socioeconomic culture with all global systems necessary to support those acts. The question was asked, but none of the connections were made. My brain was yelling,\u00a0the river is dying because of this book<\/em>\u2026 among many other causes. The inability to answer the question is what is causing the harm described. And that never seems to surface in the writing.<\/p>\n

This is why I don\u2019t write books\u2026 why it took over fifty years to write much of anything for public consumption. I don\u2019t like to prescribe and proscribe. I strive to be circumspect. (Because I don\u2019t know what you need.) But there are so many people giving out decrees and to-do lists \u2014 buy an electric car, put up roof-top solar, eat vegan, practice meditation and intermittent fasting. And all these things can be good. But the value of an action is determined in place, in body, in time. Many of these prescriptions are great for the people who are prescribing but are hardly practicable for anyone else. When we write, we are assuming a generic audience, a generalized place, a problem to solve. We leave out all the connection and blur all the relationships and brush all the complexity under the rug. Then and only then can we talk about one thing to be done \u2014 making that one thing practically useless when it is sunk into the snarling relativity of actual living bodies. One thing can\u2019t do much of anything for any body. There is no universal panacea.<\/p>\n

There is no universal anything. Life, being, time\u2026 it is all located and embodied and individually relational. The actions to take and to avoid, to create and to maintain life, these are a matter of the material body. A body living in a particular biophysical location. A body with specific bodily relationships. A body composed of a unique system of other bodies, both internal and external, all adapting to each other through time and in place. (But not in space\u2026 because every real relationship is grounded\u2026) There is no universal because every last thing in the universe is local. The only path to wellness, to healing, to understanding, to life, is under your own feet. It is here and now. It depends on all the relationships \u2014 it\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0all the relationships \u2014 formed by your specific body.<\/p>\n

Things done on a wider scale than your body in your place will always cause more harm than good because that wider scale means more bodies, more relationships, are required to meet\u00a0your<\/em>\u00a0needs \u2014\u00a0and not their own<\/em>. It means taking from without giving back, using without reciprocation. And your localized body will never be able to remediate, ameliorate, cure the harm it has caused remotely. You can\u2019t put back the minerals needed in the soil that grew the wheat in your bread far on the other side of the planet, nor any of the other resources and energies and life-hours necessary to make that arrangement of you eating remotely produced bread. Yet there are few earnest people handing out a proscription on remote eating and a prescription to eat locally, mostly what you, yourself, can produce. We talk about the dying rivers but we are silent on how our remote eating is killing them. And we do not even think about taking steps that might stop the killing. We ask \u201cis it alive?\u201d and do not answer the question for fear we might have to do something about that\u2026 and that something might look a lot like care work\u2026<\/p>\n

So, if I were to prescribe, here is what I would say. It begins with ending. You are not a global being. You are a relationship with your physical time and actual place. \u201cActual\u201d means of action, of doing, of being. You are actual. However, when your acts spill over into other places, other times, when you are no longer in bodily relationship with those bodies you are affecting with your doing and being, when it is not possible to reciprocate and to adapt to each other because you are so far removed from each other, then your acts are causing harm. So stop that\u2026 Right now\u2026<\/p>\n

The first step in stopping is to take stock. Examine every thing you do and use to meet your bodily needs. Pay attention to just how much work and material must go into each thing. Pay especial attention to physical transport and financial profits because these are the two things sucking the most life out of the world and giving nothing back. Because these are not actual things\u2026 They meet no biophysical needs whatsoever.<\/p>\n

You will not be able to stop causing all harm, stop the dying of the rivers, not by a long shot. Even if you have just one toe remaining in this culture-stream, that toe will be contributing to some body\u2019s pain. Reconcile yourself to that, but do not use that toe as an excuse to leave the rest of your body in the system. Too many people seem to be shrugging and saying,\u00a0Well, I can\u2019t avoid hurting this world in some fashion, so I\u2019m not going to bother with avoiding anything<\/em>. Or the corollary,\u00a0Even if I stop, all these other people are going to keep going, so I\u2019m not going to bother stopping. Because what does it help if I stop?<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, it helps whoever is not being harmed because you stopped\u2026 but it also helps you because every body is connected. The less harm you cause, the less harm you are going to suffer.<\/p>\n

So\u2026 start expunging what is least necessary to your body\u2019s existence, closely followed by finding less destructive ways to meet the most harmful of your actual needs. These less destructive ways will always be local and will demand little from others, whether labor or resources. Every year or so \u2014 maybe at New Year, maybe on your birthday, maybe at the beginning of spring \u2014 go through this exercise again. Make lists and records. Each year, note your progress and then expand upon that. Cut out those things that are least necessary to who you are each time you take stock. Each year, consider new ways to meet your needs and build your bodily relationships. Each year, learn your place and time. Love it. Care for it as it cares for you. Care for it as you care for your body \u2014 because your place and time is your body.<\/p>\n

There will be years when you feel like nothing can be changed. There will be times when things will get worse. There will be stubborn needs that just can\u2019t be filled outside this destructive, extensive system (hello, insulin\u2026). There will also be years when you decide that to make a better local life, you need a more supportive and alive locality; and translocation will be harmful in many ways. I\u2019m not a fan of ends justifying means, but sometimes means and their ends are unavoidable, though not justified. You can\u2019t live in a flooded house, after all. You can\u2019t drink poisoned water. And most large, modern cities are incapable of meeting any biophysical need without drawing on vast oceans of harm elsewhere \u2014 as well as harm to all the bodies within the city. So, you may need to start your stock-taking process fresh elsewhere\u2026 as painful as that may be\u2026<\/p>\n

So\u2026 stock-taking is the first thing\u2026 and it is ongoing\u2026 for the rest of your life\u2026<\/p>\n

The second thing you will be doing in tandem with stock-taking is stock-making. You need to develop a bodily life that is not harming other bodies. This requires that you do your own work, produce most of what you need, develop your own relationships with your place. Obviously, if you are in this culture now, you are rather coddled in that regard, and you are going to need to learn how to do so many new things. You will also need to find or make the least harmful toolkits for your life work. You will need to learn those around you, become aware of the relationships you are in \u2014 from friends and family to gardens and groundhogs and mountains and rivers. Strengthen some, adapt to others. Not all your relationships will be sunny and full of light, and so you will need to learn how to adapt yourself, how to accommodate conflicting needs in the world. The goal is the most health and well-being, the most life for all, not just you. Sometimes you get to eat the peas\u2026 sometimes you don\u2019t. Life depends upon that balance.<\/p>\n

Learning this balance will be your most important task, and once acquired it will be your most valuable skill. And the main part of learning balance is learning humility, learning your place in the world, learning to be small and to live light on the world. There are whole wisdom traditions centered on just this one skill. Do not feel discouraged if you don\u2019t make much progress at first. Even the Buddha required years of practice before Enlightenment. But again, don\u2019t let failure be an excuse. This is one skill that is mandatory. Much work can be shared out, so that your body won\u2019t be called upon to do everything. But to do that sharing, every body must be able to practice, to embody, balance.<\/p>\n

Really, that\u2019s all I got. That\u2019s the sum total of my advice. You do those things \u2014 stock-taking and stock-making \u2014 and world change will follow. If all of you \u2014 and I\u2019m speaking especially to those who use sufficient resources to be able to read my advice \u2014 but if all of you individually make these changes, a shift toward health, both locally and globally, will be rapid. This system is utterly dependent on your continued activity within it, supporting it, feeding it, keeping it alive. And even so, even with all our daily efforts to prop it up, it is faltering. So if a critical mass of bodies leave\u2026 it will evanesce\u2026 being no-thing already, it will vaporize into memory. If you, specifically, stop feeding it, it will fail all the sooner, and\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0will enjoy the benefits of getting out. This is a win-win-win. Your body will be happier; the millions of bodies who you currently are harming will be healthier; and the system that requires that harm will collapse, permanently improving the lot of all bodies \u2014 including yours!<\/p>\n

(And yes, I do realize that you will no longer be reading my advice in that happy hour\u2026 and I will be very happy for you\u2026 and me!)<\/p>\n

Even if just some of you make these changes, health will increase and harm will decrease and the system will be destabilized just that much more. And for those who do make those changes, regardless of the effects spread outward, the effects on your own lives will be enormous. You will be healthier, happier, more settled. You will be more skillful and wise. You will be more caring and careful. You will find that more and more of your needs are actually being met. You will be living, perhaps for the first time in your life.<\/p>\n

This is why, on balance, I object to Macfarlane\u2019s book. He obviously is a person of considerable means\u2026 Why not use that to make meaningful change? Why write about what is beyond his personal grasp, what is exacerbated by his personal grasping? Because in writing rather than doing, he is foisting his own bodily needs onto others. He could be growing his own food, taking care of his own kids, teaching others his skills, spreading his wealth to those who have not shared in the benefits of this culture, supporting local production, cleaning up the messes and halting their spread in his own neighborhood.<\/p>\n

My advice to Robert, if he truly wants to know if a river is a living body, is to stop gallivanting all over the globe, transporting mess everywhere for river bodies to cope with. Stop killing rivers. If you must write, write where you are, how you are. Write your own place, write how it is, not merely what is there. Write your place within your place. This, of course, requires that you know your place and your relationship with every body there. This requires that you know those bodies. This requires that you know the river and know your relationship to that being. This requires that you know how that river lives\u2026<\/p>\n

And in that process, undoubtedly, you will be able to answer your own question\u2026 and laugh at yourself for ever asking it\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My advice to Robert, if he truly wants to know if a river is a living body, is to stop gallivanting all over the globe, transporting mess everywhere for river bodies to cope with. Stop killing rivers. If you must write, write where you are, how you are. Write your own place, write how it is, not merely what is there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3515039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79718,213530,79720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3515024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-environment-featured","category-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3515024"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3515040,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515024\/revisions\/3515040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3515039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3515024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3515024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3515024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}