Hello fellow travelers,
At the beginning of the year, I was invited to participate in a collective called The Well Keepers. It was born from a group of devoted women spanning the globe who have been practicing a monthly ‘day of silence’ for a number of years.
With the Lunar New Year on February 10, 2024, this group of women opened their doors and sent out the bat signal for any woman interested in participating in a continuous stream of prayer and tending for our collective wellspring of life.
This is the description on their website, thewellkeepers.org :
A collective body is gathering who know the power and impact that conscious care and shared attention have in the world. Who nurture and protect an inner core of silence. Who heed the guidance that arises from that inner place and let their presence be a blessing to the planet, to all people, and to all our relations.
Each person receives the mantle of caring from whoever carried the day before, tends the earth and all human and non-human beings in whatever way speaks to them for 24 hours, and then passes this dedication into the waiting hands of the next caretaker. Thus creating a steady, never-ending weave of deep, energetic love and surround – for all that is happening in every corner of this beautiful, aching home of ours and beyond.
To participate, each woman chose a day on a shared calendar to “tend the well.” The facilitators of this group organized our names and emails, and sent instructions on how to “pass the mantle.” The calendar, along with our personal reflections from tending, are housed on the above-mentioned website.
In the Fall, the facilitators opened the circle to include men, and offered the opportunity for those who had tended earlier in the year to tend again if they felt so moved.
The first day I chose was March 26, my maternal grandmother’s birthday. The day did not pan out how I had envisioned when I made the commitment. I did not have the opportunity to sit in silence or escape to nature as I had hoped to honor this privilege of tending the wellspring for the entire planet. I mean, what a task! A huge responsibility! Surely this should require every ounce of reverence I could muster!
But alas, there was a deadline and necessary coordination with multiple parties to complete a job that had been in the balance for quite some time, and was finally coming to completion on the day of my chosen well tending.
So, for me, it was a practice of holding the sacred through the mire of mundane.
From my reflections on that day:
It’s a day of completion in my world. A great ending and a great beginning. This is how I know eclipse influence to feel - like being squeezed into a keyhole so the intricacies of the lock can be intimately examined and possibly finagled to open a door that has not yet been available to pass through.
The snow flurries sweeping across the land remind me of this unexpected and exceptional time. The wheel is turning. The knock at the door is answered as we each stand up to tend a day at the Well. We know the waters have secrets to expound.
I spent my day with the “salt of the earth.” I mean this on all literal and figurative layers. Salt - that which makes the passing of electricity through the fluids of our bodies possible. The groundwork for the network. I bow in gratitude to these molecules of matter, conduits of light to dark places.
And I pray for care-fully crafted networks of collaboration and creative synergy to be birthed. May we stand for the nourishment and freedom of all living beings, channeling the abundance of our Great Mother through the eternal Well of love from deep within our wombs.
I have been deeply moved by this experience, both in participating and in receiving the care and reflections of each participant. Maybe this will move you, too: to know that every day throughout this past year, someone has been holding the mantle, tending to the well of life and spirit, praying for you and your kin, honoring the Earth and all her children in some unique form of presence.
I suspect this collective of well keepers will only grow in the years to come. There has been a chorus of praise and inspiration in the reflections, many keepers voicing the palpable importance of this work. (You are welcome to follow the link above and join.)
Being so moved, I tended the well for a second day yesterday, December 4. I managed some proactive planning, and was supported by the stars and the weather to spend the day outside, mostly in silence - my original vision of well tending getting the chance at redemption.
What came through as I breathed in the mountain air, was an aching cry for forgiveness. And a reminder of the invitation of this winter season to slow down, get quiet, and remove the clutter - a stark contrast to our society’s way of celebrating the holidays.
Below is a version of my reflections that I posted on the Well Keepers website. May we be nourished by the shared waters of the wellspring, remembering that despite our “keeping” status, we always have access to this eternal body of wisdom and restoration.
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.
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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,” roiled by hurt, rallying fear.
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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 outcast and forgotten parts, be them external enemies or the cringe-worthy words I spoke yesterday. 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. Wholeness restoring.
In practical terms, tending looks like solitude, meditating, treating my body as a precious temple, being mindful of all types of consumption.
At the well I’m reminded that the outside is the inside, and nourishing the inside nourishes the outside. So even though it is obvious where division needs tending out there, 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.
Blessings to all for a quiet season of well tending.
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