Thoughts on Bridges and Crossings

I love bridges, stepping stones, fords and ferry crossings. AJ's comment, "You crossed a lot of bridges" on my post last week, started me thinking about the bridges that I have crossed in life. The one I am crossing now, especially. 

To cross a bridge, a river or a border is to leave behind the familiar, personal and

comfortable and enter the unknown, a different and strange world where, faced

with another reality, we may well find ourselves bereft of home and identity.

—Jean-Pierre Vernant

The symbolism of bridges has led me to some interesting reads this morning. From bridges in film , to poetry and myth and legend, to religion and spirituality. I've also been listening to music featuring bridges.

Standing on a bridge is where I am right now. Where we are right now. It is not a bridge we would choose to cross, and we are facing some resistance and blocks to getting safely across. We might just get swept away.

Heading towards the Algiers Ferry and Long Bridge in New Orleans

Bridges are a constant for we humans, for our lives are full of transitional points, these can be on many different levels. We can be undertaking several crossings at one time. Sometimes it seems that several large crossings follow each other. Sometimes the crossings are smaller and less noticeable.

Bridges can be mapped, so you know that they are coming up; or you can come across one unexpectedly. They can be solid and secure, or you can be aware of the danger of crossing, on a rope bridge for example.

Image found here

 They are symbolic of transition, change, connection, the overcoming of obstacles; they are also associated with endings, death, danger and loss. They are romantic and often beautiful. We cross them and we are them. We build them and we burn them.

I am finding myself saying this a lot lately....."We'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it." 

Still, we know that this bridge may lie ahead and in our minds we might imagine ourselves crossing it or battling with the troll that lives beneath. Sometimes we know that we have to cross a bridge, there is no other way around the obstacle.

“The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn”

David Russell

Sometimes we linger on the bridge.

 "This place between places is also a place between times [1]. Otherwise responsible adults have been known to revert to a childhood state while on a bridge, feeling free to play the game of Pooh Sticks made popular by the children’s books of A.A. Milne. Normally sane and sober men and women will happily indulge in infantile games when they encounter a bridge. Obviously it was Milne who prepared the way; but it is the bridge that is the trigger, and there everyday social rôles and behaviour are suspended."

Alby Stone

“People who have lost relationships often wonder why they can't just let it be "water under the bridge." It is water under the bridge - the trouble is we do not live on the bridge but in the river of life with its many twists and turns.”

Grant Fairley

The sunlit stream upon its bosom takes

The inverted shadow of a bridge on high

And thus the arch in air and water makes

One perfect circle to the gazer's eye.

So 'tis with life; the things that so appear

Are fleeting shadows on time's passing tides, 

Cast by the sunshine of a larger sphere

From viewless things that changelessly abide.

Unknown

Sometimes we are the bridge itself.

I believe in communication; books communicate ideas and make bridges between people.

   Jeannette Winterson

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

                                 Issac Newton                                   

 “I am where I am because of the bridges that I crossed. Sojourner Truth was a bridge. Harriet Tubman was a bridge. Ida B. Wells was a bridge. Madame C. J. Walker was a bridge. Fannie Lou Hamer was a bridge.”

                                                                      Oprah Winfrey

 "Rumi's place in the history of religion is as a bridge between faiths. The story of his funeral in 1273 is well known. Representatives came from every religion - Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus. When questioned about this they responded, 'He deepens us wherever we are.' Rumi lives in the heart, the core (he might call it friendship) of our impulse to praise, to worship, to explore the mystery of union. Even his name is a bridge word."

Coleman Barks

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

Khajou Bridge - Photo from Flickr creative commons