The Maidens of the Wells

A broken contract with the land

Last week, I spoke about trees beyond their utility… that while we can scientifically describe what they’re up to, there is another plain, a tonglen plain, on which they are filtering the whole complex story of the world. It makes more and more sense when I think about it… the ruach -the Great Breath, breathed the trees into being… and we are all here because of the ruach.

My friend and collaborator James Finley, who has a very good sense of humour, often smiles his twinkly smile, and invites people into an exercise. He invites them to join him in the simple exercise of holding their breath for 10 minutes. A humbling bit of humour to suggest, we are already in the presence forever and always. It does not depend on us. “Every breath is a grace”, he says.

Today, I want to remember water.

Locally this month, I have been invited to join an Anishinaabe Ikwe Water Walk. This means that for three days, we will be walking around a nearby lake, and praying for the water. Showing gratitude to the water. Showing protection for the water. Acknowledging that, like air, the water is something we all have in common. We are one, in our need for it.

Now, it may surprise most of us today, but my own heritage has a deep lineage of water protection!

In Somerset, England, the lands where my great grandma Evans was born and raised, there is an ancient story that mythologist Sharon Blackie often tells… it is called The Maidens of the Wells.

It is not an easy story. It involves the raping of these water protectors, and it involves their disappearance.

Painting by John William Waterhouse

For my ancestors it was a common practice to make offerings to the protectors of the wellsprings, and when Rome began to colonize the tribes in Gaul, and Britannia, they would auction these wells off to the highest bidder so the beautiful jewelry and gold could be extracted.

More of my personal heritage… in Scotland during the terrible years of the harshest puritanism, when women were burned by the tens of thousands, from 1563-1736, there are stories that say many wellsprings were filled in, to keep women from going to them.

Another personal heritage connection to water: in the 2nd Century, Christians had to practice baptisms in secret. This moved the practice of baptism from rivers, out of doors… to indoors. Sometimes they would be performed in bathing rooms, or in courtyard fountains of private homes.

It is a balancing, humbling thing, to carry both a heritage of persecution and persecuting.

This week, I put the story of The Maidens of the Wells to a lyric. For some time, I have been wrestling with choosing which story to use, for the second song on my folk opera. There are many powerful stories from all cultures that name this severance… that name this need to control… but in the end, I chose this one because it comes from my own ancestral background.

Here are the lyrics as they are in this moment (I often walk many days with lyrics… rolling them over my tongue until they really sing):

And lest we fall into total despair, remember… this is the second song in the story… singing of this heartbreaking severance is necessary to sing of a shift into recapitulation.

The Maidens of the Wells

Walk softly to the holy wells

And you’ll be fed, and watered there

Where the maidens dwell

They offered you the plate and cup

With their whole wild hearts

And you were bonded to this land

like interwoven parts

And you walked with her

She was all you needed

Yeah you walked with her

When the guardians 

Were here

Till one day it struck you

You were not in control

There was something in the water

That you weren’t allowed to hold

So you pursued and you subdued

Like a sportsman with his game

And she looked at you with sadness

As you took your aim

And you walked alone

The master of the Wasteland

Yeah you walked alone

When the guardians

Were gone

And you woke up the next morning 

With no one in your bed

The scent of wild was gone

And your world was safe instead

For awhile you longed for her

As she still longs for you

Then you forgot your longing

Like an ache that’s on the move

But you still long for her

The grail, the cup, the flame

You still long for her

The land you tried to claim

You still long for her 

You thirst for her

You ache for her

In your whole body

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