The River Beneath Everything
Before there were nations or cities, there were rivers. They were the first highways, the first boundaries, and the first teachers of how deeply everything is connected.
Every villain began as someone else, just as every hero has their journey. We all must start somewhere.
Throughout our lifetimes we can play many roles. Parts we were born for, some we were shaped into, many we resist, and others we stumble into unexpectedly. And whether we embrace or reject them, those roles connect us to something larger, weaving our individual threads into a tapestry we often can’t see until we step back.
Well friends, here we are at the end of August. The Dogs Days are behind us, and the familiar symbols of fall wait just ahead: crisp mornings, pumpkin spice, and that first deep breath of cool air that feels like your mind is clear again. But beyond these comforts, the ending of this month carries with it something subtler—a shift in the season, in the rhythm of life. It’s also a reminder that our lives are also tied in constant relation with the turning world around us.
Even the name August reminds us of connection to history. Before it was August, it was Sextilis. Only after the reign of Augustus Caesar was it renamed to honor him, linking the calendar itself to empire. A single month, tied forever to a lineage of power, ambition, and legacy.
What’s in a name, if not connection to something that came before?
We often try to plan, schedule, and time-block our days as if they exist only within our own boundaries. But in truth, our lives overlap and intersect in ways we rarely acknowledge. A conversation changes a mood. A decision in one place ripples outward to affect another. Just like rivers, we’re all part of a system far larger than ourselves.
And this brings us… to water.
Hydrology, the science of water, wasn't formally named until the 16th century, but humans have been studying it since the beginning. Ancient Egyptians charted the floods of the Nile, knowing it determined their harvest. The Mesopotamians dug canals from the Tigris and Euphrates, weaving entire cities around them. The Romans built aqueducts, carrying water across mountains and valleys, connecting distant places with stone and gravity.
“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”
Take the Nile, for example. Every summer, as if by some hidden clock, its banks overflowed, blanketing the land with nutrient-rich silt. Entire harvests, and therefore entire generations, depended on this rhythm. People prayed to it, built their calendars around it, and shaped their myths from it.
Meanwhile, half a world away, the Indus Valley civilization carved out one of the earliest urban planning systems, streets aligned to capture runoff, reservoirs dug to store monsoon rains. Rome, centuries later, engineered aqueducts that not only brought water to fountains and baths but also symbolized power. Water connected emperor to citizen, mountain spring to crowded city centers.
What they all understood is this: water binds everything together. It shapes land, feeds crops, sustains life, and decides where communities rise or fall.
The river that flows through your town is connected to clouds that formed hundreds of miles away, and the ocean it eventually reaches touches every shore on Earth. Every drop, no matter how small, is part of something larger.
And aren’t we the same?
Our thoughts, actions, and choices ripple outward—sometimes in ways we’ll never see. A kindness offered may echo in a stranger’s life for years. A careless word may cut deeper than intended. Like tributaries feeding a river, we’re constantly flowing into each other’s stories.
“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”
I often think about this when I water my plants. The water that leaves my hose once ran down a mountain somewhere. It became part of a river, then perhaps an aquifer, then traveled through pumps and pipes before arriving at my porch.
What seems like such a small act—watering your garden—becomes part of a vast chain. That water nourishes the soil, which nourishes the roots, which grow leaves that shade the ground and create oxygen for me to breathe. Even in that simple ritual, I am connected to more than I can comprehend.
It’s humbling to realize how many unseen threads bind us. Communities are like river deltas—messy, branching, endlessly weaving in and out of each other, yet forming something whole. Friendships are like confluences, where two streams join and become stronger together. Conflicts, too, resemble floods—overwhelming, destructive, but also leaving behind fertile ground when the waters recede. And each of us, no matter how small we feel, is a stream feeding into a greater flow.
August, then, is not just an ending of summer or a prelude to fall. It’s a reminder of the ties we can’t escape—the invisible web of connection running through history, seasons, rivers, and us. The Romans may have renamed Sextilis to August to leave their mark, but water, time, and connection endure beyond empires.
So here we stand, not as isolated individuals, but as currents in a greater flow. Another month, another reminder that none of us moves alone.
