Like A River

by Carmen Liberatore (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Costa Rica

Dripping water punctuated the silence. I sat in a darkened room, sweating shoulder to shoulder with thirteen near-strangers. A log shifted in the fire and a fresh wave of heat engulfed me. Sweat lodges may not be my thing, I thought, as a drop slid down my nose. I was in the mountains of Costa Rica with a group of fellow students, backpacking and studying tourism in rural areas. We had been invited by our host, a Bribri shaman, or awa, to engage in a traditional sweat lodge ritual, which is how we found ourselves sitting in this tiny circular lodge in our bathing suits, quietly perspiring around a small fire. My feet rested on the packed-dirt floor and my back pressed against the rough wooden frame. With an enormous effort, I attempted to clear my mind like someone cleaning a messy desk in one sweep and tried to turn my thoughts toward something more profound. After all, wasn’t this was an ideal place to have a spiritual epiphany? Several sweaty, silent moments passed. A stray hair tickled my brow and I pushed it away. I concluded that it’s difficult to have a spiritual epiphany when your face feels like it might melt off and you keep getting interrupted by a constant drip-drip-dripping sound. We’d been told to sit here for ten minutes. How long had it been so far? I opened my mouth and hot, wet air rushed into my lungs. It had to be nearly time; we’d been in here forever. How hot was it supposed to get in here? What if the fire grew too big? That would be a funny story to share at home; the time I got burns from a too-hot Bribri sweat lodge. I wonder if— A gentle snapping of fingers interrupted me. I opened my eyes and was immediately blinded by sweat. Wiping my face, I saw everyone filing outside for a submersion in the river, the first of three. Following my classmates, I ducked through the lodge’s low entrance and gratefully inhaled the lush, cool air. We walked to the river in silence and plunged under the surface. The water swept away my sweat and replaced it with a feeling of calm. I sat in the shallows, watching as the current drifted by, occasionally dimpled by raindrops. After a few minutes, our awa motioned for us to return to the sweat lodge. Settling in, the warmth felt cozy and comforting. I listened to the dripping of our bodies and the light rain on the roof. Water really is all around us, I thought. It’s inside of us, in our blood and marrow. Water dictates the seasons and sustains life. In some form, it’s everywhere: above, below, and within us. Plants reach for it in the darkness of the earth. Their roots suck it up with nutrients from the soil and siphon it upward through their cells. Water fills the cells and keeps the plant upright, tracking the sun. Eventually, the water will transpire from the leaves and embark on a new journey through the atmosphere; off to form mists, clouds, thunderstorms. Snapping fingers. Back to the river. Kneeling with the river to my neck, leaning forward into the gentle current. Where had this water been, these molecules that were flowing by? Perhaps sliding off leaves, trickling through the ground, emerging from a spring and falling into the stream. Flowing from its source high in the mountains, meandering past quiet farms, over rocks and past myself, through valleys and into the vast ocean. This life-giving force held and rocked me like a mother, its coolness making my skin shiver. Walking back to the lodge, rain coated the rocks I stepped over in a thin sheen, and mud squished between my toes. The water of my body was no different from this water here on these rocks and inside this tree root and falling from the sky. It’s just different forms. This thought filled me with peace, overflowing my heart like a mountain spring. My bones became saturated with this knowledge, rippling and coursing through my veins. Like a river.