Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Destiny
Chapter 29 -- The Underground River as Metaphor
Surely those millions of little streams of accident and willfulness have their correction in the vast
UNDERGROUND RIVER which, without a doubt, is carrying us to the place where we're
expected! -- Tom Stoppard, The Coast of Utopia (2003)
Distance
He stopped and laughed--a low, gurgling laugh--and it was to the girl like the roar of some
SUBTERRANEAN RIVER heard from afar. -- Edgar Wallace, The Book of All-Power (1921)
Dormancy
Using the UNDERGROUND RIVER as a metaphor for all that lays dormant in our exceedingly
domesticated society; Something About a River explores various angles on the notion of
ambivalence. -- review of Bluemouth, Inc's "Death by Water" from the trilogy "Something About
a River," Fort Greene Park Conservancy internet posting, 2008
Far too antiauthoritarian to brook fuehrers or gurus, Pagans use historical materials to cure
themselves of historical determinations, and to tape the UNDERGROUND STREAMS
murmuring beneath the dominant narratives of the patriarchal state. -- Erik Davis, "Remains of
the Deities, Reading the Return of Paganism," internet posting
Emergence
In relation to his public, the artist of today is
like the speleologist of the Peak or of the
Causses of Southern France; he walks at
first with his companions, till one day he falls
through a hole in the brambles, and from that
moment he is following the dark rapids of an
UNDERGROUND RIVER which may
sometimes flow so near to the surface that
the laughing picnic parties are heard above,
only to re-immerse itself in the solitude of the
limestone and carry him along its winding
tunnel, until it gushes out through the misty
creeper-hung cave which he has always
believed to exist, and sets him back in the
sun. -- English literary critic Cyril Connolly,
The Condemned Playground (1946)
DRAFT 1122//66//22001122
First First Place Place
Place
Underground Underground River iver
Metaphor
Metaphor
The award's only our opinion, of course, but we
think it's deserved
It was as if an UNDERGROUND STREAM flowed through the country and broke out in sudden
springs that shot to the surface at random, in unpredictable places. -- Ayn Rand, Fountainhead
(1943), describing hero Howard Roark’s struggle and success
The "well of life'" is not in the next world, and not in the church's font; it is in human beings
themselves. If they receive the life-giving water, they themselves become the wellspring of this
water for other people. With this as background, Meister Eckhart painted the picture of God --
the Spirit of life -- as a great UNDERGROUND RIVER which rises to the surface in the springs
and fountainheads. -- Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, A Universal Affirmation (2001)
The SUBTERRANEAN STREAM of Western history has finally come to the surface and
usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live. And this is why all
efforts to escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the
anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain. -- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
(1950)
There are UNDERGROUND STREAMS that flow on unseen and at length reappear to the light
of day, holding on their course with undiminished volume. In like manner do the streams of
influence disappear from view only to rise again, oftentimes when least expected, hewing their
Uppddaatteess aatt hhttttpp::////www. .uunnm. .eedduu//~rrhheeggggeenn//UnnddeerrggrroouunnddRi ivveerrss. .hhttml l
377