It was water more than anything that devastated North Carolina’s western mountains.
Delivered by a hurricane force, it fell and tumbled to earth in such volume that towns were wiped off the map. Hills dissolved into great mudslides. Roads and highways washed away.
When we crossed Caesar’s Head a few weeks after the deluge, trees were down everywhere. Parks and trails were still closed. Road surfaces cracked and gutted. Mud still piled up here and there.
And yet the water…the water that delivered such destruction…had already returned to its place. Tumbling down from cliff sides. Gently moving around and over granite boulders that would, inevitably, one day erode to pebbles.
As though to mockingly ask: What was all the fuss about?
That water is simultaneously the essential stuff of life and the most destructive agent on Earth is, simply, the nature of its essence.
Indeed, it is its very beauty and its sheer inevitability that simultaneously enchants and terrifies us.
What is it about water?
Water is the softest of all things, yet it is the most powerful. The Tao is not about grasping, but allowing, like water. – Wayne Dyer
You look at the way rocks are formed – the wind and the water hitting them, shaping them, making them what they are. Things take time, you know? – Diane Lane
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. – Loren Eiseley
The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. – William Blake
Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water. – Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. – W. H. Auden
A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us. – Lucy Larcom
The sound of water is worth more than all the poets’ words. – Octavio Paz
Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it. – Lao Tzu
The fall of dropping water wears away the Stone. – Lucretius
All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. – Toni Morrison
FreeGNV 
And….. “You can never step in the same river twice” Heraclitus