As Venus and this crescent moon punctuate the Western horizon, I sit down to reflect on this day of Well Keeping. After sitting watch at the well back in March, and being so moved by the consistent outpouring of tender care from each keeper throughout the year, I chose to sit another day.

My back nestled in the crook between two roots of a Ponderosa Pine, I spent the better part of today’s sun-shiny hours overlooking Horsetooth Reservoir above Fort Collins, Colorado. Chattering Jays and Magpies accompanied the afternoon, along with screeching Hawks overhead and munching Mule Deer down in the valley.

My meditations today circled around the literal act of tending a well. But first, an exploration of the well itself - this access point to primordial depths of our shared life-source: water. When the well is clean and clear, nourishment is easily sought and received, replenishing our bodies and spirits. When the well is cluttered, our desire to replenish is met with challenge - both in the task of retrieving and in the quality of what is retrieved.

So tending the well… this collective task we have taken up; what does it mean? How might we serve to bring the fullness of available nourishment to the surface for all to benefit from? This was my question: what is tending?

Approaching the well within, I noticed the clutter, the muck, the algae building on the surface, sticky sludge starting to grow on the walls. Ah, the holiday season… Candy and commercials and extra doses of discount-boasting spam emails. The quiet invitation of this approaching Solstice to slow down, dig deep, and find stillness has been difficult to hear amidst our societal chatter.

My work today became quite clear: scrub the walls, skim the muck, restore the sacred quietude of this holy well.

And then listen.

There are grievers at the well.

Heavy hearts from war-torn lands, nursing wounds and seeking vengeance.

Men and women unable to listen to each other.

Ghosts of the past wrestling with today’s freedom.

Tired heroes condemning “them,” rolling in hurt, rallying fear.

What do they seek at this well? What do I seek?

Forgiveness.

The Christ path of remembering we are One with all that is. Restoring union where there is division. Bringing love to the lost and forgotten parts of us. Welcoming those disparate pieces back into the quilt, stitching them into wholeness.

Person to person. People to people. Man to woman. Child to adult. Body to soul. Left to right. Heart to head.

The clutter seems to justify the separation, constructing barriers between me and this collective source of life.

As the well is tended, this nourishment of forgiveness becomes more available to me.

At the well I’m reminded that the outside is the inside, and nourishing the inside nourishes the outside. So I start with forgiveness in here. It’s harder than I want it to be. I set up camp at the well; I tend to the muck and I drink the sweet water of forgiveness until my heart softens and I remember One. I might be here awhile…

This prayer of St. Francis helps to tend the tending:

May I be an instrument of peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

May I not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Love and blessings to you as fellow travelers on this journey.