INTRODUCING ALLUVIUM

When waters run, they loosen things. Particles cleaved from soft banks and young stones tumble with the currents, colliding and drifting through eddies and around bends. Eventually, the waters are quieted and these fragments find rest on the shoulders of a wash or floodplain.

In the stillness, this admixture of sediments that previously shared no commonality becomes something new, something whole, and perhaps something beautiful. It becomes alluvium.

From the latin "to wash against," alluvium is a deposit of clay, silt, sand, and gravel left by flowing streams in a river valley or delta, typically producing fertile soil. Alluvium is the byproduct of motion and erosion, a byproduct of change. Alluvium is the scant discarded evidence of a landscape caught between the twin forces of growth and decay.

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It seems non-accidental that we often refer to our human consciousness as a stream. Thoughts move as surely as waters, and they also loosen things as they do. Deep memories, sensual experiences, ideas young and old get carried along as the flow builds. Aspects of ourselves and our worlds that previously felt very far apart suddenly bond and become something new.

For many, these alluvial deposits become little more than idle marvels lasting only as long as the stream of consciousness remains quiet. Then new thoughts come roaring through, and new deposits take their place.

But for writers, the challenge is to capture these alluvium before they're displaced. Through attention and discipline, the writer offers these alluvium protection, diverting streams around them, pulling new fragments into them and letting others tumble away. With time and attention, these alluvium become our stories. Alluvium is what we leave behind, evidence of our transformation no more durable than shifting sands.

This blog is built as a sort of catchment device, a safe haven for writers to house and share their alluvium with others. Not all alluvium need be beautiful, and not all need to make perfect sense. What all alluvium require is trust. Trust that these fragments were brought together for a reason. Trust the the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. Trust that one alluvium always makes an impression on another. And finally, trust that our stories are not meant to last, for it is their impermanence that makes them real and important.

So share your alluvium, your collected fragments, your memories and revelations. Share your discoveries about the self and place. Share the lessons that time in the natural world has shared with you. Alluvium is a place for those wild little things that drift and collect. May Alluvium be a home for our stories.