THE WELL

Be thankful now for having arrived,
for the sense of having drunk from a well,
for remembering the long drought
that preceded your arrival and the years
walking in a desert landscape of surfaces
looking for a spring hidden from you so long
that even wanting to find it now had gone
from your mind until you only remembered
the hard pilgrimage that brought you here,
the thirst that caught in your throat;
the taste of a world just-missed
and the dry throat that came from a love
you remembered but had never fully wanted
for yourself, until finally after years making
the long trek to get here it was as if your whole
achievement had become nothing but thirst itself.

But the miracle had come simply
from allowing yourself to know
that you had found it, that this time
someone walking out into the clear air
from far inside you had decided not to walk
past it any more; the miracle had come
at the roadside in the kneeling to drink
and the prayer you said, and the tears you shed
and the memory you held and the realization
that in this silence you no longer had to keep
your eyes and ears averted from the place
that could save you, that you had been given
the strength to let go of the thirsty dust laden
pilgrim-self that brought you here, walking
with her bent back, her bowed head
and her careful explanations.

No, the miracle had already happened
when you stood up, shook off the dust
and walked along the road from the well,
out of the desert toward the mountain,
as if already home again, as if you deserved
what you loved all along, as if just
remembering the taste of that clear cool
spring could lift up your face and set you free.

In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do — spiritual sit-ups like reading a dull but recommended critical text. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

Now and again, it is necessary to seclude yourself among deep mountains and hidden valleys to restore your link to the source of life. Sit comfortably and first contemplate the manifest realm of existence. This realm is concerned with externals, the physical form of things. Then fill your body with ki and sense the manner in which the universe functions — its shape, its color, and its vibrations. Breathe in and let yourself soar to the ends of the universe; breathe out and bring the cosmos back inside. Next, breathe up all the fecundity and vibrancy of the earth. Finally, blend the breath of heaven and the breath of earth with that of your own body, becoming the breath of life itself. As you calm down, naturally let yourself settle in the heart of things. Find your center, and fill yourself with light and heat.

While exile is not a thing to desire for the fun of it, there is an unexpected gain from it;the gifts of exile are many. It takes out weakness by the pounding. It removes whininess, enables acute insight , heightens intuition, grants the power of keen observation and perspective that the 'insider' can never achieve.

"Only when one is connected to one's inner core is one connected to others. And for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be re-found through solitude" ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

A POT IN SEARCH OF A LID Very often we feel like a pot without a lid. We believe that our lid is somewhere in the world and that if we look very hard, we’ll find the right lid to cover our pot. The feeling of emptiness is always there inside us. When we contemplate the other person, sometimes we think we see what we feel we lack. We think we need someone else to lean on, to take refuge in, and to diminish our suffering. We want to be the object of another person’s attention and contemplation. We want someone who will look at us and embrace our feeling of emptiness and suffering with his energy of mindfulness. Soon we become addicted to that kind of energy; we think that without that attention, we can’t live. It helps us feel less empty and helps us forget the block of suffering inside. When we ourselves can’t generate the energy to take care of ourselves, we think we need the energy of someone else. We focus on the need and the lack rather than generating the energy of mindfulness, concentration, and insight that can heal our suffering and help the other person as well.

It's possible to satisfy the needs of the inner life by an intimate communion with nature, or by knowledge of the past.

Something ancient in us bends us toward the origins of the whole thing. We either drown in the splits and confusions of our lives, or we surrender to something greater than ourselves. The water of our deepest troubles is also the water of our own solution. In surrender, we descend down to the bottom of it and back to the beginning of it; down into what is divided in order to get back to the wholeness before the split. Healing, health, wealth, wholeness: all hail from the same roots. To heal is to make whole again; wholeness is what all healing seeks and what alone can truly unify our spirit.

A day will come when you will be stirred by unexpected events. A part of you will die, and you will begin to search for the elixir that will bring this part of you back to life. You will seek the elixir in friends, lovers, enemies, books, religions, foreign countries, heroes’ songs, rituals, and jobs, but no matter where you look the treasure will evade you. All will seem lost, and you will lose all hope that this magic potion even exits. This will be the darkest of nights, and the promise of certain death will lead you to the abyss of despair. But staring into the abyss you will see the dim light of your own illuminated Soul. Your radiance will transform the abyss into the elusive elixir of life, and for the first time you will realize that all the while it was your own Light that you’ve been searching for. READ THIS FIRST

A: So you intend to return to your desert?

B: I am not quick moving. I have to wait for myself — it is always late before the water comes to light out of the well of my self, and I often have to endure thirst for longer than I have patience. That is why I go into solitude — so as not to drink out of everybody’s cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think as I really think; after a time it always seems as though they want to banish me from myself and rob me of my soul — and I grow angry with everybody and fear everybody. I then require the desert, so as to grow good again.

Even in the best of worlds the soul needs refurbishing from time to time.

Only in restoring the web of connection can we find peace. I’m sure it is possible to heal in a mountaintop cave alone, but for most of us the quickest and deepest healing happens in the embrace of others.

In order to heal the scarcity wound — created by the lack of nurturing both in our families and in our culture — we must learn to become the loving mother to ourselves that we never had. This ‘remothering’ is the ongoing practice, tremendously helped by a mentor, of learning to care for your body’s needs, validating and expressing your feelings (even if they’re unpopular), holding healthy boundaries, supporting your life choices, and most of all — being welcoming towards all that is yet unsolved in your heart.