I am working with what Ira Progoff calls “entrance meditations” to open me to prayer. And today is about “The Well.”
I will be posting them poco a poco (Spanish: little by little) this week. May these entrance meditations lead you to that “underground stream” just under the surface of our lives.
And there meet with the power that dwells at the bottom of your well.
Here in the underground stream
We realize
That many others
In earlier times
Have entered their wells
And have gone inward
Until they reached
The waters beyond the well
Where we are now.
In ancient days, Jacob went down his well
And where he returned
He placed a stone
For remembrance.
In his way, Moses went down
And Isaiah and Ezekiel
Lao Tse and Zoroaster
Gautama Siddharta
Meister Eckhart
George Fox
Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman
And many others
Have gone down their well
To the underground stream
Those who have gone down their well
Into the underground stream
Have done many things
Upon returning
To the surface of their lives
Some have written books
Some have painted and sculpted
Some have lived their lives
More fully
With inward abundance
And with gentler wisdom than was possible before.We are not the first
Nor will we be the last
To go into the well
And beyond the well
Into the underground stream.
We recognize others here
Not only we who are entering now
But those who have been here before us.
They will speak with us
They will share with us
Their lives and their knowledge they will share with us
As one.Ira Progoff, The Well and the Cathedral, Dialogue House Library, New York, 1971,1981 p.117 ff.
