Chapter One: The Survival Plan Develops
Once upon a time, (maybe last weekend may be a thousand years ago), in a land just around the corner from here, there was a stream.
The stream flowed through the land, sometimes swiftly bounding over rocks and sometimes gently gliding through flat green meadows. Watching over the stream was the stream spirit, a young creature with much to learn. The spirit had only recently been given its own stream in its own land; he was still learning the ways of water. For the first few days, the stream spirit played and watched.
One day the stream spirit had visitors. Two older spirits appeared near a clump of willows and introduced to themselves, explaining that they were the little stream spirit's neighbors and guardians. "We're here to help you learn the ways of water and land," they said. "We've been around for a while. We have a lot to teach you.
The stream spirit was overjoyed, and threw himself into the lessons with great enthusiasm.
"The first thing you must do," one of the older stream spirits said, "is to tone down the noise. Your stream, being new, is too loud. It disturbs us and probably disturbed the neighbors, too. Go get some big rocks.
The little spirit rolled to three boulders over to the Willow Grove. The elder spirits showed him how to place them in the stream to block the flow of water. The stream's raucous flow was reduced by half. A pond began to spread out over the flat meadow behind the rocks.
"There!," the older spirits said. "You've made a good start."
The little stream spirit felt weak and dizzy.
"Don't worry," the older spirits said. "You'll get used to it. And anyway, it's better than being buffeted about and deafened by all that unrestrained flowing water."
Chapter Two: The Survival Plan Deteriorates
Over the next few years, the little stream spirit continued to take the advice of his neighbors. He added more and more boulders to the dam, until no water at all float below it. The meadow became a huge, stagnant lake. Below the dam lay a drying, dried-out wasteland, emptier than the desert. The reservoir began to stink. The little stream spirit complained to his older neighbors, who had stopped over to see how the stream spirit was managing its water. They looked at each other in surprise.
"Why, this is how it's supposed to be," one said.
"This is how ours are," said the other, "and we worked hard, without the kind of help you've had, to make them that way. For goodness' sake, what more do you want?"
The little spirit said he would like more greenery below the dam and less odor above it.
"We can fix that," the older spirits said. They reappeared the next day with a dozen buckets and a bag of paint brushes. They opened nine buckets of green paint and divided them among the three of them, then set to work painting the rocks below the dam. They even painted some of the dead trees. When they had used the last of the paint, the older spirits opened the three remaining buckets with a flourish.
"These are the latest products developed for just such a situation as yours," they said. "The liquid in the first bucket will kill all that stinky algae that have grown in your reservoir. The powder in the second bucket will cover the smell created by the chemicals in the first bucket. And the third bucket is a pleasant blue dye to make the water looked pretty."
The emptied the three buckets in the reservoir and left.
The little stream spirit sat on the shore of its empty blue lake, disconsolate. He watched a dead fish float past, pushed along by a hot breeze blowing up from the desert below the dam. He wandered down into the desert, sat on a green rock in the sparse shade of a sickly little green- painted tree and sifted sand through his toes for a while. It didn't seem right, somehow. But his older, wiser neighbors had insisted that this is how the land and the water should be managed. The stream spirit side and laid down for a nap. When he awoke, the landscape was just as forbidding and uncomfortable as it had been before. The spirit wished he had stayed asleep. He began taking longer and longer naps.
The stream spirit became a skilled sleeper. He found many ways to get himself to sleep, and he had lots of nap spots. There was a cool, shady spot for hot days, and a cozy, sheltered cave with lots of dead leaves for days when cold winds blew. One day, he found a ravaged clump of bushes clinging to the shore of his lake. The stream spirit nibbled the shriveled berries and discovered that they helped him go to sleep faster and stay asleep longer. He tended the bushes carefully after that and hoarded the dried berries.
What he wasn't sleeping, the stream spirit learned to pretend. He convinced himself that the green trees were alive and the green rocks were the animals that used to live near the flowing stream. He invented games to play with his imaginary friends.
Of course, he could no longer swim in the poisoned water, and the only shade he could find was a hollowed-out cave in the bank. He visited with his older neighbors often, though. He began to think of them as his teachers. They gave him advice about caring for his lands, and they pretended with him that the trees and animals were still alive. The stream spirit often felt lonely when he was with the older spirits, but he didn't call it that, because he didn't know that's what it was. He just ate more sleepberries and told himself that playing made him tired.
Chapter Three: The Wakeup Call
 One day, the stream spirit woke up with the sun in his eyes and saw two figures striding over the ridge beyond the lake. He thought they were his teachers, but as they drew closer, he realized they were strangers.
The strangers introduced themselves: they were grown-up stream spirits who lived two ridges over. They had heard about the little stream spirit from the teachers and decided to call. The stream spirit watched them carefully. Although these spirits were the same size as his teachers, it was hard to tell their age; they seem to both older and younger. They laughed more, and yet they seemed quieter. The stream spirit decided he liked them, and invited them back.
Gradually, he grew to like and trust is new friends. When they invited him to come visit their lands, he excitedly packed up his things. They stopped him, though, when he started to pack a box of sleepberries.
"We prefer that you don't use those while you visit our place," they said. "Besides, you might find that you don't need them. Being awake is more fun."
The stream spirit shrugged, and left the sleepberries behind. Later, he wished he hadn't.
The place where his friends lived was magnificent -- everything that the stream spirit's lands used to be but now were not. The stream spirit had forgotten how beautiful land could be, how intense the colors, how cool and wet the water. His friends' land had birds and squirrels and lizards and too many other kinds of animals to count. The trees were huge and offered acres of shade.
He was excited and dismayed at the same time. How could this place be so beautiful? How could his be so awful? He laid awake at night, jumpy and alert, wishing for the comfort of a sleepberry-induced snooze. He hated to leave, and yet was relieved to get home.
Once he was home, though, the reality of his situation became excruciatingly painful. He sat in the unrelenting sun and longed for the shade and cool breezes of his friends' lands. He drank the brackish water and remembered the sweet liquid from his friends' streams.
Worst of all, the sleepberries quit working. He couldn't sleep.
Chapter Four: Self-Responsibility
The stream spirit sat on a rock with his head in his hands. His friends sat beside him. The stream spirit sniffled. He hadn't slept in days. The glimpse he'd had of his friends' homes haunted him. He found his own surroundings bleak and depressing, so much so that he could hardly bear to open his eyes and look around. He wiped away another tear.
"Why did this happen to me?" he whispered. "Why did they do this to me?"
One friend raised an eyebrow. "As I recall," he replied, "you did all this."
"Yes, but I had to!" the stream spirit said. "What choice did I have? I was little, and new. They were supposed to tell me what to do! They were supposed to help me!"
The other friend sighed. "All that is true," he said, "and yet it won't help you get your garden back."
"What do you mean?" the stream spirit said.
The friends looked at each other. One took a breath, then sat for a moment, gazing at his feet, as if considering what to say. When he looked up at the stream spirit, his eyes were soft.
"There are those who believe that each of us chooses our lives," he said. "We choose the people who are to help us. We choose our families and friends, our enemies, our teachers, our lovers, neighbors, bosses and employees. They say we choose before we are born, before we come to this planet. They say we choose based on what our souls believe we need to grow and learn."
"You mean, I chose those jerks, those stupid ones, those people that told me to destroy my garden?" the stream spirit cried.
His friend nodded.
"Ridiculous!" the stream spirit said. "Why would I pick people so destructive? And, if I did pick them, then that must mean that I'm a mess, too! Or else I would have chosen wiser, kinder teachers!"
"If one of the tasks your soul set for itself was to learn how to trust your own judgment," is friend said, "then you picked the right ones."
The stream spirit just stared at him.
"Because," his friend continued, "if you learn to trust your judgment under these circumstances, you will be able to trust your judgment forever, under any circumstances."
The stream spirit was silent for several moments. Then he squinted up at his friend. "So maybe I'm actually brave for choosing these circumstances," he said, "and not stupid?"
His friend nodded.
"I don't know," the stream spirit said. "That sounds far-fetched to me. I'm not sure I believe all that -- about choosing before you're born."
"That's okay," his friend said. "You don't need to believe it for it to have value for you. Just behave as if it were true."
The stream spirit shook his head. "You lost me again," he said.
"Well, what would it mean if you did believe that you chose all the things in your life?" his friend asked.
The stream spirit thought. He thought about other choices, choices he knew he had made--like the time he chose to plant a sleepberry seedling in a sandy area instead of a loamy one. That choice meant the seedling had died, but it also meant that he learned a little about what sleepberries needed to thrive.
"Well," he said, "I guess it would mean that there was something for me to learn. That maybe it's not all a big mistake. That may be it's nobody's fault that I'm miserable."
"Okay," his friend said. "And what would you do differently if you believed all that?"
"Well, I guess I'd quit sleeping so much," the stream spirit said. "And I guess I'd have to look around here and start doing some work to put things right. And I'd have to forget about trying to get them to fix it for me."
"That's it," is friend said. "That's how you'll get your garden back. We call it Îself-responsibility.'"
Chapter Five: Teachability (WisePassion™ #1)
The stream spirit couldn't get his friends' sparkling river out of his mind. Over and over, he replayed memories of the fish glinting below the surface, the glimpses of furry animals scurrying through the woods, the birds and squirrels squeaking and chattering among the branches of trees that seemed to reach the clouds. His friends had said the stream spirit's own land could look the same. Could it be true?
He gazed at the sleepberries in his hand. They were the last of the harvest. The sleepberry bushes were doing well, and there would be more fruit in a matter of weeks, but for now these were all he had. His new friends said he would have to give up the sleepberries if he were going to turn his land into a garden.
"At this point," he said aloud, "it's not much of a sacrifice; they don't work anymore, no matter how many I eat."
But he knew that it would be a sacrifice to be without anything to relieve the monotony and the pain of life in his barren desert. The stream spirit shuttered and closed his eyes in a grimace. When he opened them again, he looked around the grim landscape that surrounded him. The yearning he felt for the sleepberry-induced numbness was a twisting pain in his belly. He brought the berries to his lips. An image of the sparkling river danced in his mind, as if taunting him for the barrenness of his own lands.
In rage and despair, he stood and threw the handful of sleepberries out into the stream bed.
"It's not worth it!" he shouted. "I'll do anything -- ANYTHING -- to make this land look like the garden again!"
Chapter Six: Self-Care (WisePassion™ #2)
"Congratulations," said a voice.
Startled, the stream spirit looked around. There stood his two new friends, smiling warmly at him.
"When did you get here?" the stream spirit asked. "I didn't see you coming."
"Oh, just recently," said the first one. "Now, what was that you were saying about doing anything to pull this place back into shape?"
The three began to talk, and they talked late into the night. They talked all the next day, too. By the time his friends left, the stream spirit had a plan. His friends knew about good food he couldn't find right there in his own lands, and they suggested he visit them regularly, so he wouldn't forget what kind of garden he was aiming for. They gave him a packet of seeds to plant, with instructions for watering and weeding. He had to get up early each morning to attend them, and to do that he had to go to bed on time each night, eat well during the day, and get some exercise.
If he followed this advice carefully, his friends said, he would be on the road to making his new garden a reality.
Chapter Seven: Discernment (WisePassion™ #3)
One day, when the stream spirit was working along the banks of his still foul-smelling reservoir, tending the little green seedlings, he lost his footing and fell in. He came up the sputtering and choking, covered with slime. His friends were visiting that day, and they pulled him out.
"You don't know how to swim yet, do you?" they asked.
The stream spirit scraped slime out of his hair. "I used to swim," he said, "but that was a long time ago. Back when the water was clean. Now I stay out of it."
"Time to get back in," the friends said, chuckling.
The stream spirit stared at them. "Not me," he said. "No way. Things are looking up, life is going to be okay, all I need to do is stick to my schedule, tend to seedlings, and stay off those sleepberries. You know, I'm just getting to where I can sleep all night again!"
"Fine," the friends said. "You don't have to re-learn to swim. But it's the key to bringing this garden back to life."
They left him alone to think about it. The stream spirit turned the idea over and over in his mind. Now that it was in his mind, he couldn't let it go. What did they mean about swimming being the key? And why was it so important? And wasn't it dangerous to immerse yourself in that stinky, murky water?
On his next visit to his friends' place, the stream spirit made an announcement.
"I've decided I want to learn to swim," he said. "After all, as long as I'm working around the reservoir, there's always the danger that I'm going to fall in, and you two may not always be there to pull me out. So I'll do it. But you two have to teach me. Okay?"
The friends smiled at each other, and then at him.
"Of course we'll teach you," they said.
Chapter Eight: Harvesting (WisePassion™ #4)
It took many long weeks of practice, but the stream spirit became a strong swimmer.
"You've done well," is friends said. "You've strengthened your muscles and learned the way water works. You don't panic anymore in the water. You can swim from one end of the reservoir to the other without getting winded."
The stream spirit, half-dozing in the sun after his morning workout, smiled. He loved hearing praise from his friends.
"So now you're ready for the most difficult part," said his friends. The stream spirit's eyes flew open.
"What do you mean, Îthe most difficult part?'" he said, eyes wide. "Nothing could be more difficult than learning to swim!"
They explained that the stream spirit's land would never be the garden it was meant to be as long as the water was dammed up. Water had to be able to flow for life to come back to the land. That meant the stream spirit had to dismantle the dam.
He looked up at the huge pile of rocks and paled.
"It's too big!" he said. "I could never pull any of those rocks out! And even if I could, the flood would drown me."
His friends pointed out that he had placed the rocks there to begin with. They said his swimming skills would keep him from drowning. And in any case, they insisted, it had to come down.
The stream spirit sighed, thought about the alternatives (there weren't any that he found acceptable), and decided once again to trust his friends. After all, they had been right about everything else so far.
He climbed up to the top of the dam and looked around. A smallish rock lay at his feet. He picked it up and tossed it into the stream bed below, then noticed that a larger rock lay just below, almost hidden by a few small ones. One by one, he tossed rocks into the stream bed. A tiny trickle of water started down the face of the dam. That was encouraging.
The larger rock below was now nearly exposed. The stream spirit, sweat running into his eyes, dragged a long branch onto the dam and levered it under the rock. He pushed and sweated and changed position. He stopped to catch his breath and congratulated himself for learning to swim; without that conditioning, he would never have the strength to do this work. He went back to work, pushing and sweating some more. Finally, he felt the rock begin to move. His heart pounded. He threw his weight against the lever. The rock held. The stream spirit took a deep breath and gave one more monumental lunge. The rock tipped, teetered, then crashed out of its place and down to the stream bed, dislodging several more rocks along the way.
Suddenly water filled the space where the rock had been, and then the stream spirit shared the space with the water, and then the entire reservoir seemed to push its way out through the little hole, bringing with it more rocks and branches. The stream spirit tried to ride the crest of the wave, but the force of the water rolled him over and over and over. He held his breath until he couldn't anymore. The last, panicked thought that ran through his head just before he lost consciousness was, " Why did I do this? "
Chapter Nine: Power (WisePassion™ #5)
The stream spirit awoke on the bank of the streambed dozens of yards below the dam. He turned over and groaned. He was covered with bruises, and where there were no bruises, there were cuts or scrapes. He kept his eyes shut for while, hoping the aches would subside.
Gradually, a noise he didn't recognize worked its way into his awareness. He thought about the noise and tried to identify it. And then he sat straight up. The stream!
The noise was water flowing over the dam and down the streambed. The streambed wasn't full--in fact, it had a long way to go before you could call it full--but there was water there, gurgling along the around the rocks. It covered his toes and collected in the sun. It babbled, it chuckled, it meandered-- it did all the things flowing water is supposed to do. The stream spirit giggled.
Then he gasped. The dam! Aches and bruises forgotten, he jumped up and raced around a bend in the streambed. Yes, the dam was still there, but it was much smaller. Water coursed down its face, splintering the sunlight.
The stream spirit stood there, marveling. He heard chuckling behind him and turned to see his friends grinning at him. He leaped into their arms and knocked them both off their feet. The three of them lay there, laughing and hugging.
After celebrating the water's release, the three friends shared lunch and talked about what was to happen next. The friends explained that there was much work still to be done. The stream spirit had to clean up all the debris that was carried into the streambed by the flood, continue to pull rocks from the dam, build sturdy levees along the streambed to prevent flooding, stock the lake with fish, clean and landscape the shores of the lake, and more. The stream spirit couldn't wait to begin. With the flowing of the water, he felt his energy return. He knew now that the land was his again. He already felt the life pulsing through it.
Chapter Ten: Synergy (WisePassion™ #6)
The stream spirit's beautification efforts began to expand downstream. More and more of his environment bloomed. The banks of the stream, the scrub just beyond it and the forest beyond that were filled with life. He began to range farther and farther away from home, exploring more distant reaches of the land.
One day he rounded an outcrop on a slope high above his stream and paused to enjoy the view. There below him sparkled another stream. Surprised, he climbed a little higher and traced the course of the stream. About 300 yards downstream, it joined another stream-- his stream! In the distance, the stream spirit could see that the two streams made quite a powerful river.
He was stunned. Although he had always known there were other streams and other places, the stream spirit had never considered the possibility that his stream and another might actually join up. He sat and pondered this discovery until the sun neared the horizon.
The next day, the stream spirit returned to the confluence and walked upstream along the banks of the new stream. He admired the creative landscaping; clearly, someone had carefully thought about how to prevent erosion and encourage plant growth on the banks of the stream. " Who did this? " the stream spirit thought.
As if in answer, a stone bounced off the slope just above the bank and landed at his feet. The stream spirit looked up. He met the eyes of a stream spirit like himself, standing on a granite boulder just above his head and staring down at him with an expression on her face that mirrored, this stream spirit was certain, the astonishment on his own.
Once the two had gotten over the shock of meeting someone so similar, and then the awkwardness of introductions, they talked non-stop for the rest of the day.
Over the next several weeks, the two stream spirits hatched plans to continue exploring downstream together. As they came to know and respect each other, they decided to make the river their home together. They each brought their understanding and experience of their own streams to the new project. Within a couple of years, the river was as lovely as their individual streams. The effects of their improvements ranged far. Wildlife that hadn't been seen in the region for decades returned. Their friends and other stream spirits came often to visit.
Still, each stream spirit carefully tended his or her own original stream. The stream spirits still found ways to improve their streams, and found that doing so always benefited the river in ways they could never predict.
Chapter Eleven: Stewardship (WisePassion™ #7)
One evening, the two stream spirits sat with their friends around a crackling fire on the wedge of land just above the confluence of the two streams. Each spirit had been guided by a pair of friends, so there were six altogether now.
"I've never asked you how you met," the first spirit said to his friends. "How did you two find each other?"
"And how did you find me?" the second spirit asked her friends.
The four friends looked at each other, and then as if by agreement, one of them began to speak.
"Long ago, each of us lived separately, far away from each other. We were stream spirits, just like you, and we had learned to contain and even strangle our life force, as you did. Friends found us as we found you and helped us as we helped you. Our land bloomed and thrived again, as yours does now. And we found each other as you two found each other.
"One day, our friends brought us news of stream spirits who lived in desolation the way we had once lived. Before the story was ended, we each had decided to carry our knowledge and help to them. And that's how the four of us found the two of you. The rest of the story is your own."
The two stream spirits looked at each other in surprise.
"There are other stream spirits who still live the old way?" the first one said.
"Yes, of course," the friend answered. "There are still many, many others who live the old way."
The second stream spirit took her friend's hand. "Let's go," she said.
The six friends talked long into the night. By the time the fire burned low and the sun lightened the eastern sky, they had made their plans for their journey.
The primary creator of The Stream Spirit Story is Lerissa Patrick, a co-author with Dr. David Gruder of the two-award-winning book, Sensible Self-Help. Lerissa holds a B.S. in journalism from the University of Colorado and has almost thirty years writing experience, including newspaper articles, classroom instruction aides, advertising copy, self-help books and children's fiction. As an instructional designer, she helps speakers and seminar leaders designed dynamic, engaging classes and presentations on a variety of topics. Lerissa is also a certified Focusing trainer. She lives in San Diego, California. Her website is: www.clarityfocusing.com. Her e-mail address is: hachinohe@pacbell.net.
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