Jumping Mouse- The River of Life

An interesting point in our story is that the mouse went to a river. If Jeremy had gone to a mountain instead of a river, her would have began to climb, for mice can maneuver in earth. But mice can't manage in water. His mouse self was rendered helpless before something he was unable to manipulate and master. He could only surrender to the song of the river and listen to its voices, which together make up the music of life.
When we live in Mouse Village, our identity is determined by who and what others tell us we are. Once we look in the river, we no longer need to depend exclusively on the opinion of others for self-knowledge. The River of Life gives us a more profound way of knowing ourselves. The River, which is life, is a mirror. The people, the situations, the symbols in our life merely reflect inner aspects of self. The mirrors in our outer world reveal messages we would otherwise not be able to hear.
When we look in the River of Life, we begin to see our inner selves. We begin to take responsibility for our underlying issues which determine why we attract certain people and particular situations in our lives. In time, we can detect our weaknesses, the aspects of self we are most afraid of, reflected in life around us. We see our greatest strengths mirrored and face those fears as well. What would happen if we claimed all our power? What would happen if we allowed ourselves to be all that we are? What would happen if we did not undermine or sabotage ourselves?
When we listen attentively to the many voices of the River, as did Jeremy, in time we may discover the oneness in it all and realise that the voices in the River belong to each other. We no longer distinguish the merry voice from the weeping voice, or the childish voice from the manly voice, or the lament of those who yearn from the laughter of the wise. All the voices are interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways. All of them together are the world.
We enter that transcendent state of oneness, described so poetically by Herman Hesse in Siddhartha:

"When he listened to this river... to this song of a thousand voices, when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in himself, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted  of one word: Om- perfection."