Sometimes we take on the mantle of the Well Keeper in service to the greater good, holding and listening and sharing the medicine we bring back from the land for all to benefit.  Other times we go to the well to drink, to be heard, to be held.  Next week I will be going out for a week long Quest/fast with a group I have quested with for over a decade, and I will be carrying the mantle in service to a larger purpose.  Today I went to the well to drink, to be held, and to hold the grief of a mother/friend who recently lost her 25 year daughter to a skiing accident.  When we go out on quest we often sing a Sarina Partridge song “I will go down to the well, let the water wash me like a bell, let the water rock me like a child” so I went to the well and I settled deep into her dark womb of knowing.  I felt held and in turn could hold my friend and her daughter.  I wanted to take their pain into my heart and “rock it like a child”.  Given the spring warmth soaking into my bones it made bringing love to pain a bit more easy.  It was like the force of spring renewal was rocking ME like a child!  All around there were remnants of snow being melted, sap running in the maple trees, new buds bursting forth, streams gurgling their wisdom to me.  I stopped. I listened. I heard the truth that the grip of deep cold, deep despair, and darkness does indeed lessen. In my soul I could feel their pain and loss and love merging with mine.  I felt my own stirrings and yearnings, and what I call “my ten years of walking with grief wisdom” pouring love into that bundle of grief in my arms.  I acknowledged the messiness of love and life.  I asked the trees and the the waters and the creatures that lived there to give me guidance.  The beavers had left their snug lodges and were adding a few small saplings to their dwindled winter stores.  There was coyote scat on the trails, mice and deer browse low and high on little saplings, birds singing spring exuberance, and the ever watchful eyes of the soaring broad-winged hawks above.  The interconnected web of it painted all around me made my solitude, grief, and silence transform to the deepest of belonging.  Our collective pain fell silent into pools of understanding.  My yearning, answered in bird song and beaver chew and hope. My worries, answered by the babbling brook showing me that flow and change is inevitable and that the power of renewal and healing is unstoppable.  

I now sit reflecting on this web of interconnectedness as the full moon rises outside my window. Knowing that this moon will rise a few short hours from now in California for my grieving friend Kari, I feel the moon holding us both with her eternal wisdom.  Let us feel and trust the renewal that is there for us to witness everyday, and let us live into it’s mystery with grace and gratitude. The circle continues.  The seasons turn. Pain gives way to deeper understanding.  May it be so.  NAMASTÉ