The Flow of Intention

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What the river taught me about influencing the future

I've just returned from six days of ecstatic river rafting with three of my kids on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. I was fed on every level and through every sense, from outrageously beautiful scenery and fabulous company to delicious food and physical challenge. We were tended by guides who generously and joyfully shared their passion for and knowledge of the river, along with a boggling panoply of skills.

Before the trip, I'd been immersed in thinking about the effects of intention -- that is, how what we think and do can shape the world. What if we knew that every thought, every breath and interaction, was radiating out and creating an effect? How would that knowledge transform our sense of place in the universe and responsibility to the future? How would it change our lives?

Thanks to popular authors like Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra, there's a lot of interest in the role that intentions might play in love, business, and personal growth. In fact, the degree to which human consciousness shapes the world we see has intrigued thinkers from both the East and the West for thousands of years. With the rise of Western science and its mechanistic view of the universe, the idea went underground for a few centuries, but it has resurfaced over the past several decades. Today, a growing number of scientists are as drawn to these questions as the ancient philosophers were, and a few will even admit it.

My river mates were not aware that I'd been obsessing over all of this, and for a few days, at least, I focused on the world around me. There's nothing like floating along a river for days to feel what it is to be in the flow. And there's nothing like white water -- particularly when you are alone in a little inflatable rubber-ducky boat in class IV rapids -- to give you instant feedback about being out of the flow.

I shouldn't have been surprised that my journey proved to be all about intention, but nonetheless I was. As our third night approached, we set up camp near a hot spring. Drenched and cold, I took a soak and then went for a hike that quickly devolved into a nap against the trunk of a ponderosa pine, the river flowing before me. I woke up with the idea that the large boulder I could see in the middle of the current held a message about the nature of intention, but I couldn't quite decipher it. I went back to camp and ate until I collapsed in my sleeping bag like a sated puppy.

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