A springtime offering for the WellKeepers
I chose Sunday 13th September to tend the well as it was my Dad's birthday. I thought that this would be a fitting day to pause and reflect on the mysteries of life (and death) and give thanks for the many ways our shared time together shaped the woman I have become.
Then I forgot....that it was my day to tend the well...and instead spent the day working on a building project with my partner using his workbench, some of the tools he had left me and the skills he had imparted! I could have kept this oversight to myself...and/or hidden away a pile of guilt to be referenced in some future moment of unlovingness. Or I can simply make a different choice. One that had me choose today as a different day to honour my commitment to something that I hold dear.
May the writing that emerged from my experiences today inspire others to make choices that liberate them to share more of who they really are. For each choice...in each moment...is just one small action we can take that maintains the integrity of the whole.
With love
Pam
Posting for Barbara Cecil:
What caught my attention in your beautiful words, Pam, was the particular force at work in these particular times, born at least in part of the willingness to see the widespread devastation at hand for what it is. To bear witness, accepting the reality of the juncture in which we live. I note that the intensity of the situation sharpens my perception of what is being called out of me from the depths of the well...relative to what arises internally and what impacts me from the world I live in.
I am reaching for words that describe my experience of the strengthening clear flow from the spring, in proportion to the unspeakable debasement of this planet and her people that is also gaining purchase. I feel from you, Pam, a vitality and keenness of presence that is both clarified and fortified by your honesty and willingness to look.
An episode from my past comes to mind here. My brother, in his forties, was in the final stages of dying from brain cancer, and I was flying from Oregon to North Carolina to be with him. I was devastated. Coming to terms with the reality of Wesley’s imminent death had broken me time after time. Many months prior, I had scheduled a work engagement on my calendar that ended up landing en route to him. For some crazy reason I decided to actually do it. It was a facilitation job for a courageous man named Joe Jaworski, and 375 leaders from round the world in a three-day retreat focused on the inner path of leadership. I was shattered…and in the midst some kind of grace helped me do the most finely-tuned and life-affirming piece of work I had ever done, square in the flow from the wellspring.
This poem means a lot to me:
Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.
—Izumi Shikibu
Blessed moonight.
Off now to make applesauce and pesto. With love, Barbara