Bifurcation

Every life carries a moment when the ground beneath us shifts, when the path we’ve been following splits, and we’re asked to choose where to place our trust. Nature shows us this truth with startling clarity. On a quiet morning with my dog Copper, I watched a small creek carve a new way through the hillside, exposing roots and reshaping the soil. What looked like destruction was, in fact, transformation.

Let’s start with the definition. Bifurcation- /bi·fr·kay·shn/, is a process in which something splits into two. It is a word that sounds fancy but has a very simple meaning: splitting or cutting in two. If a stream divides into two smaller streams, that's a bifurcation.

This word has come to carry daily resonance in my life. Our waking state is full of choices. Each thought, each action or inaction is a choice. All of us are on a journey that requires constant internal navigation, tapping our intuition and spirit. It is constant, riding the wave of time that is carried along the Universe’s ongoing expansion to know thy self. To move forward (“Adelante”) requires knowing where you are, what you are carrying with you, what you are placing in front of you to take that next step. What is the value of the steppingstone that you are choosing to carry forward and how will it serve you on your adventure here? How much of your past are you willing to carry forward as you traverse this experience? What if you take from the past only gratitude for the lessons learned, wrapped in forgiveness?

 On a trip to see the Perseid meteor shower during the end of the second weekend of August, my canine companion and I set up camp at a park about 30 miles west of Winthrop, WA. We scored a beautiful spot with the creek flowing behind and below our site, just a short trek down an established path. Initially, we set out to explore our surroundings, to get our bearings for where we were in relation to the landscape, and to identify the places that catered to our curiosity and tugged at our sense of adventure, of what’s possible to discover by going beyond the bend.  Being a summer day, it was rather warm, and we found grace with the thick canopy of western red cedars, Douglas firs, and hemlocks. After hiking for a few hours, we returned to our site to collect a camp chair and headed down to the creek. If you haven’t taken to sitting just above the surface of naturally running water, with you feet emerged and nothing but the sounds of water moving across stones, around the downed logs and branches, and confined to the banks of sacred wilderness, it is truly an experience that carries wisdom when you let go and allow yourself to be the stream flowing through you.  As we sat in silence, I noticed how calm my friend Copper had become. The same peace that was washing over me had the same effect on him, and I knew that we were aligned with nature at that moment. On the way back to camp, Copper pulled us in a different direction, and since I was just experiencing “letting go” in the stream, I chose to continue this practice and allowed him to lead the way. We reached an area of the creek that curved along a steep hillside, noticeably impacted by erosion with trees clinging on by their roots 30’ above, and debris from those that could no longer hold on packed together in a bundled obstacle for the water flowing below. My first thought was, “he must have brought us here because of all the sticks!.”  There definitely was an abundance of them and he found some right away to chew on and help nature break down for easier digestion. I gave in and set my chair down again to allow the moment to be as it was. Then I began to notice. We were at the point where the creek had split. On the left where we were situated, the flow of the creek carved into the hillside, the path was stretched out with curves and laden with obstacles. Towering above were symbols of humanity’s journey, the one we have been on that is leading to a cliff, where the ground is eroding under our feet and we are holding on by the roots of hope and faith. On the right, the creek was also bending and curving through the forest, but it was moving freely, in harmony with its surroundings. As I looked ahead, what became clear was that these two paths eventually merge to continue their journey, carrying the nutrients and lessons gained from two vastly different paths. A choice to split, to bifurcate and gain something new that when brought back to center enriches the whole. What made its way through and what remained left behind defined the richness which flowed forward, along shared spaces, expanding the possibilities beyond the probabilities of a path yet undefined.

“Tread softly upon the earth because the faces of the unborn look up at you.”- James Cameron

References:

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/bifurcation#:~:text=Bifurcation%20is%20a%20word%20that,one%20thing%20splits%20into%20two.