"(there is no differentiation) between water as it appears in nature and the fluids within living organisms... together earth, plant world and atmosphere form a single great organism, in which water streams like living blood. What is here spread out over a large space, animal and man have within themselves. What in the plant world is spread in circulation over the face of the whole earth is in them enclosed in a small space, where it moves in the same rhythms and according to the same laws as does the water outside them in nature." (pp11,14)
This passage from Theodor Schwenk´s book Sensitive Chaos, explains with words what I tried to experience at the little stream Briese north of Berlin. To continue our Gyre collection of water places while being in Berlin, I travelled outside the city. Berlin itself has a lot of water as it is located in an area formed by ancient glaciers with many lakes as leftovers. But the rivers Spree and Havel are channeled with concrete and the lakes lined with villas. The little Briese stream is left (seemingly) untouched and that's how growing and decay merge. It streams through a valley which opens into marshland. There, many different plants grow in the water or on small islands formed by alders. Some of them dead, others alive. With water running lively or with a still pool reflecting the surroundings, it is the kind of nature that is soothing.