What the Salmon Teaches us about Struggle, Intuition, and Returning to our Source
Once born, the salmon will swim downstream with ease towards the ocean. Much like in the early stages of our lives, we will take the path of least resistance, and swim downstream through our experiences. This path of least resistance is where we develop our patterns of thought and behavior, because it was the only way we could think to move through the circumstances of our childhood and adolescence.
After the salmon reaches the ocean, it will explore, eat and swim, until it eventually feels the impulse to return home. There are hundreds of thousands of streams and rivers to choose from, and while finding the exact spot where it was born might seem impossible, the biology of the salmon is such that it is instilled with a magnetic pull that will guide it home. It is important to note that the salmon is not thinking or planning how it will reach home, it is only able to achieve this through an unthinking knowing, a nested awareness that would be obscured by an intellectualized mind. Unlike the salmon, it is our thinking mind, intellect and developed patterns that would prevent us from accessing an inner knowing that can guide us to our source of pure being-ness, to a place of unyielding peace and rest. The constant storytelling and narration of our experiences seem to drown out any invitation to quietly rest below our overthinking minds.
In order for the salmon to return home, it must swim upstream for hundreds or even thousands of miles. This is a profound undertaking, and through this journey the salmon will become battered and bruised in the process. Most humans do not wish to undergo an upstream journey, as we do not wish to take on the emotional pain that it entails. We would much rather continue swimming downstream, continuing to move in our patterned behaviors and thoughts to avoid the potential suffering, even if it means that we may never achieve a lasting inner peace. But our fear of suffering from swimming upstream is an illusion. The salmon does not suffer, it does not find itself pained or victimized in this excursion, it simply moves.
What the salmon teaches us, is that once we release the story of potentially suffering by swimming upstream against our developed patterns and conditioning, the experience becomes different. Yes, there will be challenges as we encounter the trauma, sadnesses and pains of our childhood, as we identify that which we once needed, but did not receive. It may feel uncomfortable at first, and the river of our developed patterns can appear impossibly long and winding to traverse. But it will only become suffering if we approach it through the perspective of our downstream swimming, our patterns and thoughts.
The primary illusion that must be dissolved, is the idea that we do not hold the magnetic properties which show us the way. Once we decide to stop blindly swimming downstream, and see the undercurrents of our patterns clearly, we can choose how we swim. If even for a short moment, we release our thoughts and perceptions, we can access the unthinking magnetism that guides us towards our being-ness. Then, the river does not appear so long and winding, our magnetic knowing will simply point towards which fork in the stream to follow, as the source that we seek is within us always. The structure of how to be open and move from our deeper source does not need to be constructed or manufactured, it is already here, we need only to join it, and swim.
