Tales of the Wellspring 4 ~ life, spirit and the land

Tales of the Wellspring 4 ~ life, spirit and the land

It’s been a considerable time since I wrote one of these posts; my interest in wellsprings has not waned but I have not felt led to write about them for a while. I’ve been a part of a couple of groups on Facebook which post photographs and articles on holy wells, springs and related phenomena, and it’s shown me how widespread and current a belief in the healing powers of wellsprings still is. In the UK and across the world, springs are revered and protected and visited by pilgrims seeking healing.

Such places usually have a powerful and numinous atmosphere, whether they are in towns or cities, or out in the wilds, or in corners of ancient sites of worship. Some are mere trickles that feed streams, sometimes drying up for months on end like the Swallowhead Spring that feeds the Kennet river near Avebury. Some have been channelled into stone troughs or even large pools (like Bath and St Winifred’s Well). Some are surrounded by fabulous gardens like the Chalice Well in Glastonbury. And some are hidden away, known to very few, like the one in Strangers and Pilgrims, only to be found by those who truly need their healing waters.

Human beings are composed largely of water. A recent humorous meme suggested that as we are 70% water (or thereabouts), humans are basically cucumbers with anxiety. Mild dehydration accounts for quite a number of health issues, from headaches to tiredness and foggy thinking, and without water there can be no life. Is it any wonder then that we have become entranced by the magic of water, especially water that bubbles up from the ground or comes out of rocks? We who are used to turning on a tap can take for granted the water we drink, yet in these days where our water supplies in many places are threatened by fracking, is it time to value water more?

In my recent visit to Austria, a friend took me to visit the immense 76m high waterfall at Golling

Golling Waterfall, looking down from the path

which was breathtaking and beautiful, and a little later, to St Bartholomew’s Well, a mile of so away, in the fringes of the forests where Franz Ferdinand once hunted and killed the White Chamois (more of that in another post). The little chapel was locked but the spring was accessible. It sang as the water bubbled out of the rocks and spilled over and streamed down the hill. I cupped my hands and drank of the water and it was pure and sweet and very cold. The local people still come and collect the water and it is said to have healing powers. For me, the chance to reconnect with nature and with the spirits of the land was healing in itself and a reminder that wellsprings are not only part of my own land’s traditions, but of the world’s. And in these dark days of separation and selfishness, where my country is about to go to referendum and vote to stay within the EU or to leave it, it’s a timely reminder that none of us should live for ourselves alone but always remember the greater world beyond our doors and shores.

St Bartholomew’s Well, Golling, Austria

Without water, we all die, no matter how rich we are. Without spirit, there is no real life anyway. Wellsprings unite life and spirit through the medium of water and the marvel of water from the living rock is a thing that inspires us and heals our battered psyches.

Raven & Vulture perform the funeral rites

Raven & Vulture perform the funeral rites

“ I look out of the window to see that a black dress or long shirt has been laid out on the lawn, much in the manner of old, where laundry was dried on grass for the bleaching and cleansing effects of sunshine and grass on cloth. I think, the day is drawing to a close so I better bring it in before it becomes damp with the falling dew. As I look I see birds landing; two black vultures and two ravens. They approach the garment, and after looking at it for a moment, they ceremonially start to fold it up, and I see that there is something lying inside the fabric. It looks like a white dog or pig, but I cannot see its head or feet to be sure; it may be a lamb. The birds wrap it as if they are putting it into a shroud for burial, much as I have done with beloved pets on their deaths, wrapping them in their blanket or a towel.”

This was my dream a few nights ago, and I have been haunted by it ever since. While I was away in Austria, I saw my first ever raven in the wild, flying across the valley, kronk kronk kronking as it flew. The village where I was staying has a raven in its coat of arms, a raven holding a diamond ring, from a folk tale or legend of the area, and the book I was reading while away, Marie-Louise Von Franz’s Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, mentioned ravens several times. Both raven and vulture are associated with the Shadow, and with death, rebirth and other themes. But even knowing this, I am baffled by this dream and deeply disturbed to the point that I am scared.

“Look, look up at the stars!”

“Look, look up at the stars!”

Every night, we have a routine at bedtime. Cats are fed, litter changed, one cat gets medication. The guinea pigs are all given a cuddle and a brief inspection to make sure they are in perfect fettle, then they’re given their supper. We usually stand and watch them hurtling round, pop-corning with the excitement of fresh hay and cucumber, before they settle in and get busy eating. Then I go out into the garden to put out food for any errant hedgehogs. This winter has been so mild I suspect some haven’t hibernated much. Most nights, the two bowls (one of meal-worms and the other of cat biscuits) has been emptied, though I cannot say by whom precisely as during the day I do see blackbirds going into the shelter to feed on whatever is there.

Some nights I am already in pyjamas and dressing gown and I’m deeply grateful that our garden is both private and sheltered, because despite the fences and hedges, sometimes the wind catches me and makes me gasp with its face-slapping chill. But I almost always take a moment to look up at the sky.

When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut. I read science fiction, mostly totally unsuited to my age at the time because the niche YOUNG ADULT didn’t really exist when I could be considered its target demographic. Those who grew up in the sixties and seventies and liked science fiction might also have encountered British author Hugh Walters, and his series of science fiction novels about a group of astronauts. The series was written primarily for children, though looking back he was probably one of the first authors to target older kids and what are now considered young adults. Back in the day before the internet, I’m afraid I took as fact a lot of what turned out to be complete fiction. My country didn’t have a space programme and by the time I got to secondary school I realised that never in my lifetime would it have a proper programme of manned space flights. A dream died, a dream that probably had its roots in my father getting us up at silly o’clock to watch on television the moon landing in 1969. I will never be an astronaut.

But I am an explorer nonetheless. Though I will never set foot on another planet, I do explore other worlds. I do this through words, through inner vision and through the understanding, sometimes dimmed by time and pain and doubt, that this existence with its matter and its heavy gravity, is not the only one. Looking up at the stars last thing each night reminds me of this, for the stars are vast distances away and may not be reached in a human lifetime, though as a species we may reach them yet. A dream died, a dream that was something born of a child’s wonder at the vastness of the universe and at our first faltering steps to explore it. A new dream slowly unfolded over the restless lifetime that followed, one that has urged me to explore not outer space, but the inner worlds of the unseen, often unheeded and reviled as navel-gazing and self-indulgence. I believe that these worlds may truly exist, but not in a physical way we can comprehend or bring back moon rocks from.

So when I gaze up at the night sky, intoning the constellations and greeting (when the night is clear enough) both Venus and the moon in whatever phase she has reached, I am touching base with an old dream that holds hands with the new one.

http://www.bartleby.com/122/8.html

A Thinking Place

A Thinking Place

Do you have a place you find yourself drawn to when you need to have a good old think? I suspect most of us do. Over the years there have been many, some close to hand and others a good distance away from home.

When we lived in Nottingham in the early 90s I had a thinking place almost on my doorstep, which is just as well as I had a toddler at home at the time. The house was the first we’d had which had a proper garden and it was quite a decent size for us; room for a swing and plenty of space to run around but also nice for us adults. My thinking place was half way up the garden path, where the garden sloped upwards and there were a few steps. I’d sit there, summer or winter, with a mug of coffee, and think.

In the years that followed there were many more. When we lived in north Yorkshire, there was a place up in the forest above where we lived, about a half hour’s brisk walk. The mountain stream that meandered down from the moors passed close to the path and down a cascade of waterfalls over rock formations left behind after the last ice age. There were four stages to the waterfall, and the sound of running water and bird song was intensely calming and conducive to deep contemplation. I’d walk up here with the dog, sit down for twenty minutes and let it all sink in, and the knots in my head slowly untangled.

In Norfolk, there were several close enough to my home that a walk often took a couple of hours as I spent time in each. One was a huge tree trunk that had been dragged off the path and left. Here I would sit, among the woodland, and listen to nightingales and watch for wildlife and the fae. Further on, deeper in the woodland, was a vast black poplar, larger than any I’ve ever seen before or since. It was clearly the queen of the wood, twin- trunked and massive. In the gap between the two huge trunks I would stand and think; I remember being there with my friend Claire, singing native American chants together, in tune with the spirit of the forest. There was a small clearing further along, on the edge of the common, where I could sit unseen and be at one with the trees.

In the Midlands, I had several areas along the river Soar where I would stop for a while and watch the river, one close to the lock gates, another further along the tow path. When we lived in Suffolk (until about 3 years back) I had a few along the beach, sitting on a particular groyne, or among woodland clearings. Here I have one or two, by the giant old oak or on the bridge over the stream in Starston.

Despite the changes in landscape, all these thinking places had a lot in common. Each was a place where wildlife came, even in the city, though there was nothing visible that would obviously attract birds or animals. My waterfall place was the first and only place I’ve seen a merlin (the smallest of our raptors). It had not come to drink or really to hunt; it just appeared on the other side of the stream, watched me for a while and flew off. My thinking spot on the Soar brought me into contact with a weasel I lifted from the river; for example, and the further one brought me face to face with a mink. My thinking spot on the bridge brings me close contact with kingfishers, dippers, waterbirds, rodents, owls, egrets and many others. The fallen tree and the black poplar was also places where the usually invisible beings of the countryside allowed themselves to be seen. At night time, the wood was alive with the fae.

The characteristics of my own thinking spots mark them as places a shaman would call power spots, a seer would call them nexus points where earth energies peak. You can dowse for them, even, or just sense how a place feels. Often your body just knows (just as it can know when a place is somewhere you need to steer clear of!) It’s this convergence of power that seems to call wild things close, and which keeps them there when a human is present (when all their instincts are to high-tail it out of there). I’ve had a young seal virtually sitting on my lap, on a winter beach, unafraid and almost affectionate; deer, and hares, and many other creatures have come absurdly, marvellously close to me, looking me in the eye and coming so close I could have touched them.

Places like this are truly magical and to be treasured.