Swim Upstream, Said the Salmon

“Swim upstream,” said the salmon.

So I did. The harder I tried, the harder it became. Every detail of the river demanded my attention, every obstacle a reminder of how far the goal still was.

One day, exhausted, I looked down into the water and saw my reflection staring back. A salmon I was not.

That moment became a turning point. I was recovering from the need to control, from the perfectionism that always kept my eyes fixed on the end rather than the present. Slowly, I began to learn the art of swimming with the current instead of against it. To trust the flow of life, even when I could not see where it was taking me. In surrender, every bend in the river became perfection.

It was then, sitting at the water’s edge in stillness, that I saw a salmon glide in gentle circles before me. As I watched, an understanding surfaced.

The salmon’s life is not only about struggle, it is about cycle. Born in the river, it ventures into the vast ocean to grow, then heeds the deep call to return home. Its final climb upstream is the hardest thing it will ever do. Yet in that sacrifice, it gives forward everything it has gathered, passing its life into the next generation.

And I wondered…are we so different? Perhaps our souls, too, swim out into the ocean of life to learn and grow, only to return through the same waters, again and again. If so, then what we do and how we treat others may ripple forward, not only through genetics, but through the soul’s own return.

Could it be that the wounds we cause become the wounds we inherit, until compassion breaks the cycle? That love, too, flows down the lineage, returning to us in forms we may not recognize until we open our eyes?

I do not know for certain. But as I sat watching the salmon, it felt like a window opening into the mystery of soul-evolution: that our journey is not merely about reaching goals, but about remembrance. Not just striving upstream, but surrendering to the flow, learning that giving and receiving are one and the same.

The salmon teaches us this:

Life is not a straight climb, but a river circling, flowing, returning. Each of us is carried, again and again, back to the source. In the rhythm of that river, perfection is already here.

I am forever grateful for the spaces of stillness and presence that I continue to try to cultivate. In those liminal moments the most magical teachings reach my soul and I can feel myself remember the richness that exists hidden amongst all the noise.

~Shai