Articles

The Return: Filling the Well of Well-Being

"Now and again, it is necessary to seclude yourself among deep mountains and hidden valleys to restore your link to the source of life. Breathe in and let yourself soar to the ends of the universe; breathe out and let 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 the earth with that of your own, becoming the breathe of life itself."

- Morihei Ueshiba Osenseix

One of the most joyful journeys in soul retrieval* work is the recovery of the aspect of the soul who is connected to The Source. Everyone has an innate connection to The Source of All Things. Everyone's connection is equal and real. This connection is essential for our well-being. We don't need to learn this. We are born with it. The part and The Source must stay connected. Every life depends on it.

The Source energy is innate, natural, and in that, wild. It doesn't always conform to religious prescriptions. Sometimes we put children in situations where they have to choose between the wild authenticity of their connection to Source and the religious ideas held by the family. The Source can't conform. The child needs the family. The split occurs to accommodate both needs simultaneously, since the loss of either feels life-threatening. In that moment of survival many children lose their innate connection to Source. As adults we then turn to others to reconnect us and to explain about "God" what we used to know in our bones. You can decide for yourself how well that works.

So where is the joy in this? To retrieve lost soul parts is, in and of itself, a joyful process underneath all the pain and struggle of the parts and the people. But the real joy in these retrievals is that I usually have to travel to The Source to find the part. The Source has a wild, stark beauty and deep mystery that feeds my heart. I like it there. It always looks different and the energy is always the same. No matter what I am doing to get the part to come back I get to be with the essence of all life. In those moments I am renewed.
In all of the thousands of journeys I have taken I have never found The Source coming from a temple or a church. I have never experienced it coming from a deity or spirit. The Source doesn't even come from God. The Source is. It doesn't come from anywhere.

If The Source actually had a form it would most likely be The Void. That is just too scary for most people, too paradoxical. Especially in the West we have a hard time wrapping our brains around the idea that The Source of All Things is a Great No Thing.

For life on earth, where there is water there is life. This is true for plants, animals, humans and most life as we know it. On land, where there is a spring there is life. Period. So for us The Source often shapes itself in the spirit world as a spring-the shape of the physical source of life on our physical planet. The Source is often a spring high in a rocky Alpine crag or an aquifer in a dark cavern. It is always in the wilderness. It is always away from other beings, even spirit beings. It always makes my heart sing. And for the parts, no matter how damaged and depleted, The Source always renews and restores the force of life within them.
If the spring is The Source, then we are a reservoir of that lifeforce. We are a well. We draw energy or chi from the well to participate in our destiny each day. For the well to be filled we need to connect to The Source. We need to touch in at the essence of who we are and why we are here. We need to be there long enough and in ways that allows us to fill the well.

However, when we chronically choose not to return to The Source we take from the well until it runs dry. Then most of us keep taking. We move into a false yang situation of giving from a depleted and empty reservoir. This can never be true service or generosity, no matter what the intent is in our heart. When we continue in this way we move into a false yin situation of not valuing our selves enough to hold a little energy back and to act in ways that replenish the reservoir. In this state of depletion we often call in illness to force us to slow down and return to The Source.

As adults we struggle in a dynamic between feeling the desire for experience and the need to return to The Source. Culturally, the desire for experience wins most of the time. We tend not to return to the spring and touch the root of our essence unless we are forced to by illness, exhaustion, or breakdown. Even then, we rarely spend enough time there to fill the well and remember why we are here. Winter is the season of return. It is the time to slow down, to rest, and to settle into the sanctuary of our home. For most just slowing down is the challenge. We think all we need is to catch up on some sleep or restart our daily practice of silent meditation. But we miss the point. These are not the return. They are the container that holds the space for your return to The Source. To return and replenish we must touch the Void. We must go into the source of our deepest dreaming.

To actually replenish the well and restore our lifeforce we must return to the Child at play. We must go back to the non-success, the not knowing, and the stumbling. We must live again in the insecurity and lostness that we knew in childhood when we had more questions than answers. Our essential dream of life lives in this place. It is a part of that great wilderness. It can't conform. It is not competent and confident. To replenish the well we must move into where we are uncertain and unformed, to where we are not yet whole and known to ourselves.

This is the place where the dream of the child becomes the restoration of the adult. This is a place where we don't know what we are doing, but we do it anyway because it feeds the well. We step into the darkness and touch the root of life, of hope, and of our dreams. When we are willing to leave the comfort of rest and to step with vulnerability and humility into that darkness The Source is able to fill the reservoir of us and the well of well-being is restored.

*Soul Retrieval is a shamanic healing form. From a shamanic point of view part of the soul may split off, or dissociate, when we experience trauma or abuse. The soul part that splits off, slips into the spirit realm and out of time, becoming lost or stuck and leaving a hole in the soul that remains with the body. The shaman journeys on behalf of the client to retrieve lost soul parts and bring them back to fill the hole and restore the integrity of the client's lifeforce.