River Therapy

There’s just something simple about throwing rocks in the river that takes me back to simpler times. When I was a kid, I used to be able to stand on a river banks and throw rocks for an hour without getting bored. Watching different shapes of rocks make different splashed, throwing rocks as high as I could, trying my best to skip rocks, or tossing the heaviest rocks I could lift and making the biggest splashes I could. Just simple, pure fun.

To this day I enjoy throwing rocks at water. Though now, I am ashamed to admit, I do tend to get bored after ten or fifteen minutes. But I can’t let too many days go by without getting what I like to call “river therapy” or “forest treatment”. Because there’s something about spending even just a little bit of regular time in nature, whether camping, hiking, or even just spending a few minutes tossing some rocks, that really helps me. I think it has almost a healing quality to it. It helps center me. Helps me think more clearly. And while it’s not as simple as a math formula, it generally helps me be more happy.

This is not rocket science. This is so beautifully simple. It’s a simple as tossing a rock into a river and watching it splash. But it has profound impact on us. Spending just a little bit of regular time in nature, having periodic “river therapy’, is something that everyone deserves to have access to. And so, we’re trying to do something about that.