The sun sparkling on the crystal blue water took my breath away. We could smell the pine trees as we drifted, enjoying the languid headwaters of the Colorado river. “I love the peace I feel on this river. It’s incredibly beautiful,” I said joyfully, pulling my oar in rhythm with the other five friends on our raft. I felt pretty safe with our leader, Otsie, knowing that we would soon be riding a mean section of white water called “Skull”.
Suddenly the river speeded up and we could see white water ahead. The raft was hit sideways by a rogue wave and the raft spun out from under me. I was stunned but scrambled into the float position we had been taught, my legs pointing downstream. But the raft was moving at lightning speed. David jumped in to rescue me. Otsie screamed, “Get back in the raft, David, now!” Seconds later the raft shot ahead of me and was out of sight around a bend in the narrow canyon. For the next mile, I was alone and fighting to keep from drowning in the continuous whirlpools of raging water that repeatedly sucked me under the surface.
Terrified, I tried to think what to do next. I remembered a story I was told about surrendering to the flow of the river. Apparently, I was at odds with the river’s flow that day because I continued to be thrown into the gauntlet of rocks, whirlpools, and sinkholes. I started praying very hard. Exhausted, I knew I just did not have the strength in my arms to push myself up from underneath the churning torrents of water one more time. At that moment, I realized I might die. A still small voice inside of me said it would be okay to die and become a part of this river. I experienced surrender. The altered state of acceptance gave me peace and relief from not having to struggle any more.
Suddenly I realized I’d stopped moving. I was aware of the hot sun upon my freezing skin, and solid rock beneath me. I was lying on a huge boulder, looking over a falls area, a big drop off where the river cascades through a chute between two huge boulders. The sound of the water was deafening. Looking up, all I saw was high, sheer inner canyon sandstone walls and blue sky. I thought of my children and David and the fact that I had almost died in the river. I couldn’t imagine not sharing my life with them. How did I manage to get myself up onto this enormous rock when I had been totally exhausted? I had no idea. Could Divine Grace have helped me onto the rock? I was stunned at that thought. The river held me in a way for me to live.
Just then I spotted a raft coming downstream with six strong-looking men and a woman oarsman on the frame in the middle. She pulled over at the eddy across the river to review her route over the falls. I screamed, “Help me!” as loud as I could over the noise of the falls, making hand motions of “Can you pick me up?” The woman gave me a ‘thumbs up’, as each of the men were shaking their heads in disbelief. The woman then hand signaled me to be ready to “jump” onboard as her boat crested the falls. Adrenaline flooded my body. I will have to be fast and will only have one shot.
It seemed to happen in slow motion and also in an instant. One moment I was in the air, the next I had landed in the raft. The strong woman yanked me into the raft as she maneuvered the boat with her other hand over the roaring falls. Her raft landed perfectly. We were all very wet but safe. I laid on the floor of the raft all curled up, saying over and over, “Thank you, thank you, you are my river angel.”
We rounded a bend in the river and I heard her say, “There are your people over on the left bank waiting for you.” I sat up feeling very spacey and dizzy. My rafting friends cheered, helped me onto their raft, gave me a jacket for warmth, and thanked the woman and men for picking me up.
“But where is David?” I asked.
“He climbed up the canyon wall to go look for you,” said Otsie.
Soon David returned, overjoyed to see me.
Lessons keep on coming on a regular basis. Learning unconditional trust and its distinction from conditional trust was a big one. When I was in the river and knew I could no longer keep my head above water, in letting go, I experienced an unconditional trust that I didn’t understand at the time: unspoken, implicit trust that what is optimal will happen.
This trust was different from what I had known before the rafting incident. The conditioned trust I had based my life on was dependent on the reliability of people and situations. Painful experiences and personal betrayals had disrupted unconditional trust; it was always subject to change. The unconditional trust that I experienced that day in the river was different. It was not a trust in something, some person, or some situation; therefore, it was not diminished by life circumstances. Now, with that trust experience behind me, I can more easily be with life’s circumstances. I feel in my bones that I don’t have to be so afraid if disastrous events happen. That fall into the river changed my life because it gave me an inherent trust in God.
Christine Hibbard, PhD, is a clinical psychotherapist, having worked for 45 years in Boulder County and internationallly in postwar zones, working with trauma and Mind, Body Spirit Medicine. She is also ordained as a Interfaith Minister from a two year seminary program.
