Heroes Not Zombies

There’s an old stone well in the garden where I live. It’s got a rusty metal cover which is fastened with a padlock but we opened it to look down inside when we arrived here. Using a roll of string and an old key we measured about twenty metres down to the surface of the water. How deep the water is, I’ve no idea. Above the well is an iron bowl hung from an arch by a short chain. Obviously you can’t lower the bowl into the well to get water, but, somehow it seems totally appropriate.

The Redstart, and some of the other small birds, like to sit at the top of the arch, and I like to photograph the well in different lights and against different skies. There’s something deep, something rooted, something which connects me to this place, this time, and times gone past, when I look at this well.

This particular photo was taken, as you can see, during a spectacular sunset. One of those sunsets which sets the entire sky ablaze. We get a lot of sunsets like that over the summer months especially. When I look at this image I think of the four basic elements – the Sun’s fire, the winds in the Air which stretch the clouds over the sky, the Water deep in the well, and the solid Earth and rock from which the well is made, and into which it has been dug.

I think, too, of the hands of humans, because it took human imagination and craft to dream up this particular well with its iron bowl, and it took the skill of humans to sink the well, surround the top with stone, and fashion the iron bowl and its fixings.

I wonder about the beginnings of this well, and don’t doubt it was sunk to find water. There’s a very high calcium content in the incredibly stony ground in this part of the world, a region which is called the “Grande Champagne” because of the high quality of Cognac produced from the vines which thrive in this most unlikely looking soil. It’s a soil which doesn’t hold onto the water. So, I think of the vineyards and the men and women who plant the vines, prune them, nurture them, and harvest their grapes. I think of the distillers with their giant copper stills. And I think of the astoundingly varied flavours of the local cognacs which they make.

I haven’t used the well to draw water, and I don’t think anyone else has done that for many, many years. Whoever added the iron bowl and its fixings was doing something else – creating a work of beauty – something delightful to look at. And, probably without predicting it, creating a favourite perch for the local, smaller birds. Did they realise the well would look this beautiful against such gorgeous sunsets? Maybe they did.

Do you see what’s happening here?

This “object” – this “thing” we call a “well” – I find that I develop a relationship with it. I notice it. It catches my attention. I contemplate it on different days, in different weathers, and against very different skies. It delights me. It stirs my curiosity. And it sets off trains of thought which travel along a multiplicity of connections. It changes my experience of the everyday.

That’s how the human mind works. When we are well, when we are growing and thriving, we are driven by our deepest feelings – the affects – which make us the seeking, connecting, joyful creatures we were born to be. Conversely, when we sick, when we blocked or stuck, we disconnect, withdraw, and seek protection. It’s not that the former group are good, and the latter bad. We need all of our affective strategies to survive and thrive. But I’m convinced that the more we nurture joy and curiosity, the more we pursue beauty and harmony, the more we build mutually beneficial relationships in our extended webs of connections, the healthier we will be.

That’s how we thrive. That’s how we grow. That’s how we flourish.

I wish you well.