“If I didn’t think I could be a part of a movement that could influence, and be a part of helping and change, if I couldn’t help that through what I’m doing, I wouldn’t do this. But I’m seeing that through this position -in this career, and where I have these magazine interviews- I can be an example, and I think that’s important. In all the interviews I do, I say something about being vegan. I don’t want to come off as if I’m a savior. I’m only a very small part of anything, but I think it’s important to be involved. I’m interested in meditation and finding spiritual fulfillment. But for me to just go off and devote my life to monkhood in the jungle would be ultimately abandoning the world, and the consciousness would be on a selfish level. I think I can do a lot more good for this planet if I am out there.“
- River on an interview for Vegetarian Times, March 1988.
And isn’t the whole point of things–beautiful things–that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another?
