Listen Here
We never know the worth of water til the well is dry.
Thomas Fuller
The Well
The old well has been there for as long as I can remember. The water used to steadily flow. When I was a boy we prayed there to a saint. We were taught to ask for forgiveness and protection. We left small gifts. Over time I didn’t visit as often and noticed that nobody placed any flowers there anymore. The weeds crowded the neglected altar. The water had stopped flowing but for a small trickle and gradually had become a stagnant pond. Algae had taken over and we couldn’t drink from her or bathe in her like we used to. Different paths eventually led me away to different waters.
I’m old now. I hadn’t been to the well in decades and a familiar feeling called me back to take her in. The path was hard to find and I had to make my way through the brush. My own flow of amble a dissonant dance. My bones knew the way. The water was gone. The well had all dried up. Nature had taken her water back. Wildflowers and tall grass danced with the wild growth of broom. The insects buzzing up a revelry of frenzy. A rickety sign still stands, no longer legible and leans just this side of collapse.
The ones who put it there have long since passed. Just like the ones who moved the giant stones and arranged them in circles. They believed in different gods. The monuments they left behind long since stained by time now standing in the middle of farmers fields. We have always built shrines. Looking for the same answers. Asking the same questions. Did we all pray to the same source?
Was magic alive in these once hallowed grounds or was the allure always in the wandering pilgrimage of our own epiphany? Are these sacred places a door to heaven or were they always one to myself? Standing there I felt something on the gentle afternoon breeze whisper my name. I realized I was never travelling alone. Somebody stood in this same place long before me pondering where they came from as I stand here now wondering where I will go.
© Jamie Millard
Lots of Love,
Jamie
I enjoyed this write; thank you. I could feel deeply the truth of the quote by Thomas Fuller. We have a well which is the only source of water for our guest-house. Currently after a wet winter it's full. Not always so, but over 15 years it's sustained visitors, even during some dry years. I am very grateful to it. I made a litho-puncture sculpture some years back and placed it on what I believed to be the energy centre of the land, to 'honour' the 'water-gods'. The water-mine was drying up when we bought the quinta, but the well has continued with its gift to sustain life. Those who built the terraces and dug the well orginally, those who went before as carers of this piece of land, knew what they were doing. I'm in awe and wonder of them, and very grateful for their superior connection with the unseen miracles in the rocks, plants and underground waterways. 🙏
This is so lovely. I stood with you at that well, remembering. To remember is to return to the body, to return to the living. You have reanimated the maidens at the well. Living water. Thank you.