Is a river alive?

Saturday Thursday 14 March 2026, on the banks of the river Tay, with children from Fife, Scotland

It's cold but bright, windy; but not so unsettled that we cannot go out on the water. The river Tay, with railway bridge in the distance, is fast flowing and grey-blue. My colleagues, the artists and film makers Caitlin and Anj Webb-Ellis, unpack the car and build a fire on the stony beach of Wormit Bay, I collect a talking stick and some voting stones.Webb-Ellis are coming to the end of an artist residency at the Forgan Arts Centre near Dundee. We’ve occasionally worked together on various projects going back many years now, but because of Covid and young children (first mine and then theirs) my contribution has often been simply to bounce ideas around from the comfort of my office. This is a rare opportunity to be together. We’re about to greet a group of local children aged six to 10, all they know is that we’re going to talk about the river. And then, so long as the weather doesn’t worsen, we’re going on the river, and perhaps we’ll find out what the river has to say on the subject. It’s a strange pretext, and one of the older boys Fraser looks unconvinced by it as I introduce myself to the parents and coax the children to sit around the fire. ‘We’re going to start by thinking about being alive’, I tell them. We introduce ourselves by saying how long we have been alive and sharing when we feel most alive. The children tell each other they are alive when they are playing outdoors, when they are in sunshine. Passing the talking stick—a piece of driftwood—one slightly shy boy Tadeo tells us he is most alive when he is safely in bed.

I explain that we’re going to start by looking for signs of life on this beach. Wrapped up in thermal trousers, wellies, and bobble hats, they are immediately up and off, exploring in pairs, with the self-assuredness of children raised close to nature. They find welks and limpets, seagulls, ducks, seaweed, algae and lichen. As they take part in this conceptual treasure hunt, I gently prompt them with questions: ‘What makes you think this is alive? How is this living, similar or different to that that?‘

Some bring their treasures back to the beach; others bring themselves and we sit again to talk. ‘I know the limpets are alive because they are holding on tight to the rocks’, Henry explains. Finn adds that they are moving in and out of their shells. They move in and out of their shells so that they can eat. In that way, they are like us. ‘What is it like to be the limpet?’ I wonder aloud. ‘Is their aliveness anything like ours?’Other children recognise that the guls are moving and feeding too. Then Freya gets excited, saying: ‘I think the fire is alive: it’s moving and it’s hot’. Some children seem confused, but she continues: ‘The fire eats too, it eats logs!’ ‘What about the weed and the moss? I ask, ‘Does that move?’ Tadeo has those things in his hand and sheepishly puts them down, as though he has made a mistake in bringing them back to the circle. Then Will, ventures that the seaweed moves in the water. But his brother dismisses this idea explaining that it’s the waves that are moving the weed, and the waves are the result of the moon’s gravitational pull on the tide and the direction of the wind. The seaweed isn’t moving by itself so that doesn’t count.‘Are there any other signs of life in those plants?’ I ask. ‘They are wet and slimy’, the children squeal, just like the limpet. ‘Can we know what it is like to be seaweed?’ I ask. But we are diverted as, in a moment of concern, Freya and Eli want to return the limpet to the water.

‘Sit very still with your back straight and observe what the mind is doing. Watch it as from the bank of a river. You watch the water flow by. In the flowing river there are so many things—fishes, leaves, dead animals. But it is always moving, and your mind is like that.’ —Jiddu Krishna Murthy

‘You are alive’, I say as a statement that comes out as a question. They nod, and then Henry explains enthusiastically that is why he came back to the circle empty handed, he brought himself back. ‘So, what is it like to be alive?’ I ask. ‘What it is like today on this beach in the sunlight and the wind? What are you thinking, wondering, noticing, wanting, needing, feeling, wishing, hearing, worrying, hoping?’ I don’t say it to the children, but I am asking them to dip their ladle in the stream of consciousness and to share what they find. They go off again in pairs to discuss this. I watch them deep in conversation from a distance.

When I call them back, Chloe tells us she feels peaceful and happy. Freya too. Henry joins in, relaxed he says. Finn says, yes, yes, happy.  But Will and Fraser shrug. Tadeo is quiet. I ask him what he is thinking, and he says the question ‘is freaky’. It reminds him that he doesn’t know what it feels like to be dead. It makes him think he might slip on a rock and bang his head. I ask him gently, if question has made him feel worried and unsettled. He nods. I say to the rest of the group: ‘One thing we might notice about asking this question, is that we are all standing here on the same beach, by the same river, but we may be experiencing very different things’. Freya then shares that she actually feels a mixture of things: happy and excited, nervous and peaceful.  Tado’s expression relaxes. I then turn to the question that has motivated this session. It comes from a book recommend to me by Caitlin, by nature writer Robert Macfarlane: Is a River Alive? in which he explores the idea that we have come to think of a river a thing rather than a being. Our grammar speaks of a river that flows, rather than a river who flows. It is because we classify rivers in this way that we have ended up killing them with such impunity. Yet this idea of the river as more than mere matter, is rooted in the language and culture of indigenous people around the world , who have remained connected to the land that sustains them in ways that many industrial civilisations have not. It is the source of the rights of nature movement that has cleared the way for a raft of legislation that has conferred rights on rivers, mountains and forests, seeing them as things can flourish or perish, things with interests that can be respected. 

‘Meaning, as well as water, can be impounded: can still and settle behind dam walls of thought.’ ― Robert Macfarlane

It’s a strange idea, and one I’m ambivalent about. But children respond to it enthusiastically. Macfarlane’s thesis about this is that animism comes naturally to children, but it is something we educate them out of. I’m curious to know if this is true for these children.

In response to the question, they place their stones in three piles that indicate: yes, the river is alive, no, and, I don’t know. There are two stones in the yes pile, one in the no, and after some indecision, three in the don’t know pile. The two brothers have gone down to the shore to throw their stones in the river. As a mother of two boys who don’t sit still, I find it liberating to let them be free. Among those who remain, their reasons are intriguing. For Henry, the river is alive because it is full of living things. For several children this means the river is a home for life, but not alive itself. For Freya the river is like the fire: it moves constantly. This animation is what it means to be animate. Eli suggests that the lapping waves are the sound of the river speaking. ‘If the river could speak, what would it say?’ I ask, not really knowing where I am going with this question that feels strangely spiritual in my atheist mouth.

Our boats have arrived. Piotr is an outdoor instructor and while we’ve been talking, he has lined the shore with kayaks, a catamaran and a coracle. Soon they will go out on the water. ‘You have a job to do on the river’, I tell the children. ‘I hope you will enjoy your time, soak it up and feel alive. But there will be a moment during your adventure that you will be able to just float. I encourage you to close your eyes and imagine yourself as the river. What (if anything) could the river be thinking, wondering, noticing, wanting, needing, feeling, wishing, hearing, worrying, hoping? When you return, you can share, and then we can ask: Is this this river alive?’ The children spend the next hour and a half on the river while I watch from the shore. Piotr tells them about the Tay estuary and its tides, and the history boat making in these waters and around the world. He describes the conditions, in his cheerful polish, accent as ‘lumpy bumpy’ and praises the children for paddling hard against the wind. An hour in, they stop and float in a black handmade coracle. The children are wrapped in blankets decorated in river-like patters and close their eyes as they float. They look as though they are sleeping as Anj films them from above with a drone for an artwork they will make later. It’s a very beautiful scene and I wonder if they have remembered the task I set them: to imagine themselves as the river.

When they return to the fire, they are cold and happy. After hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows, I ask them what they discovered when they floated on the Tay. ‘It was peaceful’ Finn says. Chloe says her mind was full of colours and sounds. The boat was rocking gently, and she felt completely peaceful too. One by one everyone agrees, the river felt peaceful. I wonder are they speaking for the river or themselves? ‘ Are we any closer to answering our question?’ I ask: ‘Is this river alive?’ I ask Fraser who I now know can be trusted to offer a more critical view. Did the river ‘say’ anything to you? I ask smiling ironically. ‘No’, he replies matter-of-factly, ‘the river has no eyes to see of ears to hear. It can’t feel things and it can’t speak’. I nod to show I understand. He is holding a stone and watching the gulls pass over head. I ask him, ‘Is the river more like a stone than a bird Fraser?’ ‘It’s more like the stone’, he says.I ask some of the others who have been happy to say the river is alive, perhaps in an effort to please, ‘Is the river more like a stone or a bird?’ ‘It’s a bit more like a stone’ Chloe says reluctantly. I wonder if something like a stone can really be peaceful.

I mention that on the water that Piotr asked them ‘Is the river alive or dead?’ I noticed that was a new question. The group unanimously agree that the river isn’t dead. This is something Macfarlane touches on in his book, arguing that while many of us might struggle with the idea a living river, we have little difficulty picturing a dead one. His case is the Cooum River in Tamil Nadu, India, known for extreme pollution within urban Chennai. We don’t note that the ‘peaceful’ river Tay is not without its issues.  I wonder aloud: ‘Are they the only two options: alive or dead?’ ‘No’ say several children, there’s alive, dead and something else. ‘The river can be all three’ Henry suggests. It moves and changes like a living thing, it can be destroyed or killed by pollution, but it is also a home, to living things, but also to stones’.

The wind is picking up and I can see the children want to move again. As they disperse, Fraser reflects that earth is made of rock and stone, yet its alive. ‘Is it really?’ I ask. But he has gone off to dig, throw rocks and build dams with the others. The session is over.

#BritishPhilosophyFortnight #PhilosophyMatters