Well of Woe (and Wonder)

“When we reach the bottom of the well, then our heart truly opens. And it stays open.” -Richard Rudd

When I had Covid and was flat out in bed for days, struggling to breathe, I received some devastating news and was plunged into a very deep and very dark hole of despair. I languished there for what seemed a long while, waking up crying every morning.

What I discovered in the process of facing and feeling all my grief was that I had fallen into a well. It was a long and painful plunge that scraped all the skin off my heart and left me bleeding and raw and vulnerable. But at rock bottom, I crash-landed in cool, clear water that caught me and held me and, in time, healed me and transformed me; it was a limitless source of goodness and an underground river of wisdom. And I am still in it.

I was able to forgive reality for being what it is: painful, excruciating, lonely, hard and devastating. The water is a place of wonder, refreshment, inspiration, gratitude, joy, love, forgiveness, beauty and goodness.

The deep well of my heart now feels more capable of holding both woe and wonder. Like a rose with thorns, they are packaged together.

If you are plumbing the dark recesses of your own well of woe, as we all inevitably do, trust that you will arrive, eventually, in a place of goodness and wonder.

“Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the top of a mountain. So are many things learned in adversity which the prosperous man [the man at ease] dreams not of.” ~Charles Spurgeon

This is Woodwell, a magical, natural sanctuary in a lovely bit of Lancashire, England called Silverdale. It’s considered a Holy Well and a Sacred Spring. Not the usual kind of round, deep well it is rather the archaic definition of a well as a freshwater spring, a source of pure water. It’s what I think of when I consider the limitless refreshment available to us all in our Wells of Goodness.