The Waterfall Cure
For Mental Health Awareness Day, writer Gina DeMillo Wagner considers the healing and restorative powers of nature
By Gina DeMillo Wagner
The final few steps to the top of the waterfall were precarious, but I was determined. I was following a thin trail around the side of the cliff when it turned sharply upward, toward the mouth of the falls. I clambered over moss-covered boulders, the worn bottoms of my sneakers slipping a few inches with every step. I wedged my toes in the cracks between the dirt and rocks, used my hands to grasp at tree roots, and hoisted myself up until I was standing on a wide, flat landing. The lip of the waterfall was a few feet beyond. The spray billowed up and enveloped me.
I’d chosen this hike because of the name: Raven Cliff Falls. I was 16 years old and had just written a paper about “The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe, for my English class. I’d argued that the raven was not a harbinger of death the way so many assumed, but in fact was a tether between the speaker and the metaphysical. The raven represented the power of memory. It highlighted the ways humans try to make sense of the afterlife. This ugly, persistent animal made visible the speaker’s grief over the loss of his love, Lenore. When he fought against the raven, insisting on knowing the unknowable—would he ever see her again?—the bird said only “nevermore.”
I hadn’t yet fallen in love or had my heart broken. But I understood the narrator’s weariness. I too felt plagued by unanswerable questions. Because I was 16, yes, that tender age when you awaken to your own mortality and the inexorable march of time. But it was more complex than that.
I had endured crisis after crisis in my family for as long as I could remember. My older brother had a severe genetic disability and required intense, around-the-clock caregiving. He suffered violent mood swings that kept us all on edge. My father left when I was five. Mom never seemed to recover from the grief. She had untreated mental illness and couldn’t always work, take care of me and my brothers, or consistently pay the bills. In some ways, we were all like Poe’s narrator. Lonely. Desperate. Afraid.
When your life is metaphorically on a precipice, it helps to find an actual ledge to stand on to gain some perspective. Raven Cliff Falls sounded angry, relentless, intoxicating. I loved its cacophony, the way it drowned out other noise, including the negative thoughts in my head. I watched, mesmerized as water plummeted forty feet and crashed against the rocks below. As if on a loop, it kept flowing, falling, crashing.
I wondered how many years the water had been flowing this way––hundreds? Thousands? All this time before I existed, it was here, ferocious. And no matter what happened, it would continue falling for centuries after I was gone.
I dipped my hands into the falls and swept away the sweat and dirt I’d accumulated on the trail. In a way, I felt like I was resetting my soul, returning it to its purest form. I let the river dissolve my emotional residue and carry it downstream.
I watched, mesmerized as water plummeted forty feet and crashed against the rocks below. As if on a loop, it kept flowing, falling, crashing.
I went through a shoplifting phase in my early teens. I took small items, mostly. A pack of gum. A mood ring. A leather bracelet with seashells that I slipped onto my wrist as if I’d worn it into the store, as if it had always been mine.
I’m not sure why I stole. Perhaps I needed a dose of rebellion to counteract the constant weight of responsibility. Whenever I shoplifted, I felt like a normal kid for a fleeting moment. Pushing boundaries. Asserting my individuality. Doing something for myself instead of focusing on my mom and brothers.
The last thing I ever stole was an $8 pack of Tarot cards from a novelty shop. I only knew what Tarot meant in movies: wizened fortune tellers wearing colorful silk scarves hunched over a felt table. I was intrigued by the elaborate artwork on the box. The weight of the deck in my hand. The fine print on the packaging that promised I could steer my life in a better direction by channeling the unconscious, reading signs and symbols, divining my own future. I turned the deck over several times, waited until the shop clerk turned her back, then slipped it into the waistband of my Levi’s and strolled out of the store.
I shuffled the cards each morning and pulled one off the top. I didn’t yet know that Tarot cards have different meanings depending on how they appear—upside down or right side up—or that, grouped together in a reading, or laid out in the shape of a cross, they tell a larger story. I only knew that I was exhausted and confused. Happiness was escaping me slowly, like a hissing leak of air from a tire.
In Tarot, water is a symbol of feelings and the subconscious. Waterfalls represent the flow of emotions through our body, the churning of thoughts in our deepest mind. Waterfalls pull other things into their path—branches, rocks, debris. When we stand on the edge and observe, this destruction serves as a sort of warning: Don’t let your feelings run away from you. Don’t lose yourself in the current of life. Waterfalls can also represent abundance. Pulling a waterfall card can be a sign that you need to open up, listen to your intuition, and allow joy to flow more freely in your life.
The challenge—both in Tarot and in nature—is to feel the ground beneath your feet, anchor your body, and observe your emotions without judging them. Whether you’re reading the cards or following a wooded trail, it helps to trust your intuition and to remember that fear and excitement are two sides of the same coin. The rush of a river is expansive and powerful. Its brute force crashing against rocks can be frightening. It rattles you. But it can energize, exhilarate, inspire, and awe you, too.
Waterfalls teach us how to persist in a troubled world, through any season.
As I grew older, I left behind the mysticism of Tarot, but I held fast to some of its lessons. And I continued to seek out waterfalls. Wherever work or life would take me, I’d detour, sometimes an hours-long roundtrip, to see famous waterfalls: Snoqualmie Falls in Washington, a dramatic curtain of water that tumbles more than 260 vertical feet. Bridal Veil Falls, the tallest free-falling cascade in Colorado, pinched into the edge of a deep canyon. Alamere Falls, a “tidefall” that empties directly into the ocean at Point Reyes Seashore in Northern California. Rattlesnake Falls, a chattering, stair-step cascade in Pennsylvania’s Poconos region.
Every iteration offered a new perspective. Sometimes the water would collect in tiered pools, as if resting before continuing the journey downstream. Other times it flowed steadily, its rhythm meditative and reliable. I admired the power of a current to circumvent obstacles. Each time, the ecosystem seemed to accommodate, allowing the waterfall to become a new version of itself.
In my mid-20s, I was working as an editor for an outdoor travel magazine when a press release landed in my inbox. The headline said scientists declared that waterfalls are as effective as pharmaceutical medication in treating depression. It was exactly the kind of news that made for great magazine cover lines:
Nature’s Prozac!
The Waterfall Cure!
Waterfalls: The Newest (Oldest?) Mind-Altering Drug
While the claim was exaggerated (the study hadn’t directly compared waterfalls to antidepressants), the release validated what I already knew: Waterfalls are loud and chaotic. Yet paradoxically, they elicit calm. They provide the exact amount of stimulation to occupy our attention without overwhelming our senses, allowing us to settle our minds.
Scientists have long understood that when water molecules collide, they release negative ions into the air by the billions. But this study looked closer at what happens inside the body when humans inhale those negative ions. When the ions enter our bloodstream, they cause biochemical reactions that increase serotonin levels in the brain. A serotonin boost counteracts depression, reduces feelings of stress, and increases energy levels. Aside from beaches with crashing waves, the study said, the highest concentration of negative ions was found next to waterfalls and river rapids.
As a teenager, I wasn’t aware of any science behind my compulsion to hike to waterfalls. Now I wonder if standing on all those ledges with my arms spread wide, swimming in those frigid pools, breathing deeply, was slowly changing me from the inside out. Perhaps regular doses of ions had inoculated me against the darkness that consumed my mother.
Waterfalls teach us how to persist in a troubled world, through any season. With each cascade I visited, I felt a sturdiness building in my core. I could peer over a cliff and confront the deepest parts of myself. I could inhale the mist, let it saturate my skin and hair, fill my ears and enter my bloodstream. I could replace self-doubt with birdsong, with the wind in the trees, with the water’s empowering roar.
Gina DeMillo Wagner is the author of the forthcoming memoir Forces of Nature: A Memoir of Family, Loss, and Finding Home. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Memoir Magazine, Modern Loss, Self, Outside, CRAFT Literary, and other publications. She has a master’s degree in journalism and is cofounder of Watershed creative writing and art workshops. Gina has earned awards and fellowships from CRAFT, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Society of Professional Journalists, and Lighthouse Writers. She lives and works near Boulder, Colorado, and in her free time enjoys hiking, camping, and stand-up paddle boarding with her partner and children.