The Woman at the Well

​Mindfulness Community Drop In Group
​Lindsay Bridges
​
A long time ago in an old kingdom, there was a king who had five sons. These five sons loved to do nothing better than go out and hunt together for the whole day. One day while hunting, they went further and deeper into the woods than they have ever gone before, and they became hopelessly lost. They also realized they were terribly thirsty. 

So the oldest brother, Fergus, said “Stay here. I will go find water.” And so he went.

Whether he traveled a long way or short way, I can’t say for the story doesn’t tell. But eventually he did see, in the distance, what looked like a well. As he came closer, he saw it was a well, and he could feel the possibility of his thirst being quenched. 

But just as he got close to the well, from out behind it came in a hideous creature, firmly planting herself between him and the water. Make no mistake, the story describes this woman in gruesome detail, hideous in every aspect to look upon. 

Fergus asked her, “Do you guard the well?” 

She said, “Yes I do.” 
He said “May I drink from this well?”
She said, “Yes you may, if…” —and there is always an ‘if” in these stories— “…if you kiss me first.” 

Fergus, without a moment of hesitation, turned on his heel and walked away, parched and dry. His thirst unquenched.  

When the other four brothers had waited as long as they could without Fergus returning, the next oldest said, “Wait here, and I will go find the water.”  So he went.  Eventually he too found the well and the woman. Upon hearing the offer of water in exchange for a kiss, he too turned on his heel and walked away parched and dry. 

So it went, one by one with each of the brothers until at last only Niall, the youngest, was left.  He waited until he could wait no longer, and then it last, he set out on his own to find his own way. 

He too found the well, and just as he was about to step close to the well, the same hideous creature came out from behind the well 

Niall asked her, “Do you guard the well?” 
She said, “Yes I do.” 
He said “May I drink from this well?”
She said, “Yes you may, if you kiss me first.” 

At which point, without a moment of hesitation, he stepped forward and with great gentleness and kindness placed a kiss upon the woman’s cheek with a gentle embrace. At that moment, a great light burst forth from within her. The light was so bright and blinding, that Niall found himself falling to his knees in awe and wonder. 

He exclaimed, “Who are you?!”

She said, “I am King Tara, king of the golden rule, which is to meet the unwanted without harsh abuse or rejection, but instead with love and kindness.  And because you have done so with me, you may now drink of these waters and quench your thirst. You will find your way home, and there you will find that you become king, and you and your children’s children’s children will be blessed.”  (First read in Saki Santorelli’s book, Heal Thyself)

I have had times in my life when I have been both the brother who walks away still thirsty, and the brother who opens his heart and finds that that act of compassion changes everything in the moment.  I want more of that youngest brother in my life and I’m passionate about how to explore ways that opens that path.

Exploring these different moments in my own life, I’ve learned how important it is for us to deepening our sense of clear intention for our life, and then purposely find ways to keep it strong and alive.  Finding ways to engaged with our intentions on a day to day is fundamental.

Otherwise, it is so easy to drift through our days just trying to get it all done with out a strong sense of meaning or purpose, without remembering why it matters to us how we engage in any given moment.

A poem by Stephen Levine sums this up well:

Fever Dream

We walk through half our life
as if it were a fever dream

barely touching the ground

our eyes half open
our heart half closed.

Not half knowing who we are
we watch the ghost of us drift
from room to room
through friends and lovers
never quite as real as advertised.

Not saying half we mean
or meaning half we say
we dream ourselves
from birth to birth
seeking some true self.

Until the fever breaks
and the heart can not abide
a moment longer
as the rest of us awakens,
summoned from the dream,
not half caring for anything but love.


How do we help the fever break?  How do we help keep an intention to love, wisdom, kindness alive?


Purposely re-meeting our best intentions for ourselves helps support waking up.


This weekend we are having our one year organizational retreat for Charlotte Center for Mindfulness to explore how the year has been and where we want to go from here.  To do so, we plan to experiment with a tool from the software world called Agile, which is all about clarifying a working, useful intention, and I thought we could explore it first here.  


The idea is to write simple, clear one line stories that help hone our intention.  The stories answer the questions of who, what and why using a format of:


As a …
I want to …
So I can …

For example, I might write:
As a … mindfulness practitioner

I want to … sit daily

So I can … function with a calmer mind, connect to a spiritual understanding of the world, have more heart available for those I meet.

Or:

As a …mother
I want to … listen more deeply to my girls
So I can … hear and respond to them from my heart as opposed to my reactivity.

Or:

As a … community member
I want to  … volunteer in some capacity that I care about
So I can …  feel I am giving back to my community

Guided Meditation with cards and pens:

Begin by asking what kind of roles do you have in life that you care about?  Spouse or partner, Parent, friend, community member, work partner, volunteer?  Roles with yourself?  Meditator, mindfulness practioner, spiritual group member?  

Write down as many roles as you like. Then fill in the stories for you using the format:

As a …
I want to …
So I can … 

Once you have a number of stories, pick the one that is most meaningful to you.  

Visualize it happening really well.  Notice what that feels like in the body, the heart.  Notice how that would affect the quality of a day.  See if there is some positive way you can support this happening for you.