Confluence

I grew up at the edge of Deepstep Creek. My cousins and I often played in its shallows. I even caught fish in the creek. Before the Kaolin mine contaminated the creek, I saw schools of bream, catfish, and pike swimming along. Over the years, I have often crossed the creek and streams into which it flowed. I never traced it by walking its banks or paddling from its head to its final destination, but I know its confluences.

After leaving our place, Deepstep Creek flows southeast into Buffalo Creek, and in turn into the Oconee River. The Oconee flows into the Ocmulgee and their confluence becomes the Mighty Altamaha River near Lumber City. From there the river meanders across Southeast Georgia, into the Atlantic Ocean between Darien and Brunswick, GA. I think of the collage of counties which host or touch that little creek and its confluent streams as they flow—finally sweeping into the Atlantic Ocean. Reaching journey’s end, they provide a crush of aggregates to that great body of water. It reminds me of Ulysses who said, I am a part of all that I have met;/ Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’/ Gleams that untravell’d world/ whose margin fades/ For ever and forever when I move.

Every stream, from Deepstep Creek to the Mighty Altamaha River, contributes to the Atlantic Ocean. Seeds are distributed, living creatures, fish wildlife, insect life, all live and move in connecting streams supplementing the ecology of Southeast Georgia. Not all of its haul is good; insecticides, trash, garbage, or invasive plants, contaminate the waters. Yet, to a huge degree the flowing water works transformation through sunlight and its lading as gifts downstream. Seeing and appreciating those connecting streams are calls to heal what is broken.

For me, mentally to trace the flowing waters from the top edge of my property to their entry into the ocean is a mental odyssey. As my friends know, I am a printed-map nerd. Always my car had two or more Official Georgia maps tucked inside. I pore over maps as a hungry man scans a dining menu. When I cross the Oconee River south of Dublin, or the Altamaha south of Lumber City, I tend to recall that some of that river water may have poured from Deepstep Creek.

This odyssey is something of a human principle; from birth, we pass through a life of experiences. Along the way we gather, and in some cases, encase contents that shape our destiny, some we choose, others are absorb into who we become. In reality, we become that which we fasten onto. The flowing stream is like the early computer aphorism –GIGO—Garbage In Garbage Out. The ancient Proverb says it this way; More than anything you guard, protect your mind, for life flows from it.We humans are different from streams and rivers, however; we have a choice of what we keep, and most of all we can choose how we respond to our encounters. We can choose joy whatever our circumstances.

© Copyright Willis H. Moore 2024