Tobar Beannaithe Anam na Hoilrithigh*
The Holy Wells of a Pilgrim’s Soul
My sweet, new, Irish friend, Olwyn, of Ol Over It Creative was kind enough to assist with the translation of my blog title from English to Irish. There is no direct translation for it, because English is weird. But we got there. As an additional footnote, despite having only a mutual acquaintance, and never meeting me before, Olwyn sent me an amazing list of things to do while in Killarney, and then took me for a drive around her gorgeous county, AND showed me a propper Irish pub night with her friends. Your country is magic and I am grateful beyond words for your kindness, Olwyn. Next trip, sunny pints. : )
Last week I was tucking my son into bed after a busy day. Some of my favorite moments with him come when the noise of the day quiets, our eyes adjust to the darkness and he sees a window of opportunity to talk to me uninterrupted. I had just returned from a 2-week solo trip to England and Ireland, and he was overflowing with questions about it. Perhaps trying to catch up with the space, both literally and emotionally, that had been between us. At the end of my trip, I had attended a seminar about Jungian Psychology. He grew quiet and then said, “Mom did you like every single part of the seminar?”
I laughed because the answer was of course, “absolutely not!” If there is one thing I feel passionate about, it is sharing with my children that seldom does the world exist in polarities. Nothing is all good or all bad. This seminar, just like the rest of life, was lovely, and at times, less lovely.
The truth about my trip to Ireland is that when the wheels of that jetliner left the ground in Colorado, I had big hopes for all the things I imagined I would experience, feel and learn there. Being a therapist, you’d think that I’d know better? And maybe I did know better, but I let myself fly off with a suitcase full of hopes anyway. I wanted to go to Ireland and get inspired; bring some wisdom back to my personal life, my professional life and my unfolding writing. So it might shock you to hear that within two days of the start of this seminar, I was grumpily walking miles through the forests of Killarney with a head filled with grievances, followed by judgment about said grievances. Super skillful of me, I know.
This is where I can practically hear the sigh and laughter of the gods from every myth I have ever read. Where is it written that any character on an epic journey will joyfully leave home, casually receive a gilded tablet of inspiration and then saunter home having been forever changed? Why then, did I assume that the transformation I was undergoing would be a literal walk in Killarney National Park?
I was lonely and far from the ones I usually go to when I need support. I am about as extraverted as they come, but even I was drowning in a room packed with therapists who really love to process things (mostly their own feelings) at a slightly dizzying pace. I’d gotten news from home that I was not expecting and felt like I was upside down trying to read a foreign language.
We have terms for this in psychology, but I like to think of it as a slow dissolving of the ego. Ego meaning the conscious, controlled, plan-loving part of ourselves that likes life on its predictable and familiar terms. My ego was on a bad date with reality and was not pleased. The irony of meeting these cringey parts of yourself is that once you meet them, you get to work with them (see my last blog for more tidbits on that subject).
I could feel the deadlock growing in me and so I took myself for another walk through another mystical Irish forest and out to a lake. I have been with enough of my cringey, deadlocked parts to know that what I need is usually in the wildness of nature. When I sit beneath ancient trees and towering mountains, or amongst methodical waves and mossy bogs, my ego gets quiet and my soul speaks instead. I let the biting Irish wind whip around me and what came into focus did not reside in that suitcase of expectation but in the quiet corners of my own wisdom. I needed to let go. I needed to let Ireland work its magic on me and wait patiently until what was meant to unfold for me, could unfold.
Nothing unfolds in the spaces where we try to boss around our lives. But how often do we insist that we can somehow bend life into what we want it to be, even when life stares us in the eyes and pleads for us to loosen our grip? On a rocky shore somewhere in Ireland, I finally laid down my stubborn will and surrendered to something beyond me, but within me.
Later in the week, we toured obscure archeological wonders with a guide. Ireland is flush with water (let yourself be a little envious about it, fellow Coloradans), and scattered throughout the land is what the Irish call Holy Wells. These natural wells collect water, and in ancient times they were thought to hold mystical and healing powers. Standing beside one that day, I felt a deep connection with the imagery and story of these wells. A place where my ancestors went to seek wisdom and healing.
Water, long associated with emotion, fills the Holy Well, and this is the source of wisdom and healing. It is in the emotional waters of our own lives that our healing source and meaning making live.
What a juxtaposition to a modern world that sells us the idea of healing in one book or one session of therapy. We seek answers from a machine controlled by an algorithm or numbing out by witnessing other people’s lives on a tiny computer in our hand, or in the memory-blurring substances that seem to relieve the ache in us—at least for a night.
Somewhere along the way, we have been told that our emotions are not to be trusted. If you ask most therapists, they will tell you that the bulk of their work is helping people feel the feelings they have pushed away for decades. We hold space for people to remember what it is to feel and trust the wisdom of those feelings. In essence, we are navigating and mapping the paths back to a client’s own Holy Well, and then witnessing them as they draw up their own waters for healing. It is a dance I will never, ever, tire of having the privilege to be a part of.
We all have this place in us; we have simply forgotten how to get there. When I went to the side of the lake, I was returning to myself and the feelings I was attempting to avoid. The healing was in the tears I cried and the grief I felt. That pivotal moment in my pilgrimage to Ireland was all about finding my own Holy Well.
You know by now that I am always honest, so it should not be surprising that things did not unfold like a fairytale. Reality is still frustratingly, and uncomfortably, reality. But after I trusted my emotions, I could hear and see clearly again. Instead of the deadlock, I let Ireland and my soul speak from the depths of my own well. When the fated nature of reality met my willingness to receive it, the destiny of that pilgrimage found me. I am eternally grateful to the things beyond me for leading me back to that well.
If this sounds like hyperbole to you, I encourage you to pause and consider if you believe in your own Holy Well of emotion and healing? It lives there in you; perhaps you have lost it amid all this progress and stifling linear existence. It may take time to map the way, but it waits patiently for you to remember.
Per aspera, ad astra.
Julie
