Heroes Not Zombies

Across the road from my house is an ancient spring. In French a spring is “une source”. I like the French word better because it conjures up the idea of origins for me, so when I pop across to the “source” I feel that I’m touching base with our origins, with the early days of creation.

The Romans came this way a couple of millenia ago and they built, amongst other things, this aqueduct to channel the flow of the water from the “source”. By the way, Latin for a spring is a “fons”, which I presume is the root of our word “foundation”, so maybe that’s what the Romans called this water – aqua fons.

Whatever we call it this spring water is the clearest water I’ve ever seen anywhere.

As I watch the bubbles and sparkles on the surface of the water as it rushes along the aqueduct I’m instantly absorbed into the magic of the present moment. I see and hear the constant flow of the water, and I think of Heraclitus’s teaching about not being able to step into the same river twice. I’m reminded of this foundational fact of reality – constant change within constancies – how this stream of water can be named and visited and experienced by we humans over centuries whilst for each of us this water tumbling along is brand new, individual and unique.

As I gaze through the clear, clear water in the source it appears completely still to me. There’s not a ripple, not a wave, not a single bubble. Yet at its edge where the aqueduct begins it pours noisily between the ancient stones, foaming, sparkling, tumbling, filled with life and energy.

That amazes me every time. That proximity and conjunction of quiet clear stillness and tumbling gushing noisy activity. So different, yet both the same flow.

I can follow the stream which emerges from the end of the aqueduct. I can follow its path through trees, along the edges of fields, as it winds its way to the neighbouring hamlets of Le Grand Moulin and Le Vieux Moulin (The Big Mill and the Old Mill) along a little road called Rue du Ruisseau (road of the stream) which becomes the Rue du Petit Moulin (road of the small mill).

The names of the hamlets and the roads which pass through them reveal the importance of this “source” and whisper to me ancient stories of human interaction with this same, this always different, water.

How many people over how many years have stopped for a moment, entranced by this very same, yet utterly different, water as it emerges from the depths of the rocky Earth? How many have drawn water here or close to here, to drink, to wash, to irrigate the soil in order to grow plants, and to generate the power to turn those plants into enough food to feed their families, their communities?

I can only imagine.