Erica Staab

I just spent the past week filling my well, soaking and savoring in all of the things I crave, good conversation, beautiful sights, delicious food and soul filling silence.  I was reminded of the importance of making time for renewal, for being refreshed.  I was reminded in a very visceral way that in order to live a nourished life we must not only give, but freely receive as well.  

So my friends, soak it all in, the joy, the grace, the beauty, the love… it is all there waiting for you.  

Embrace it, fill yourself up until you overflow and from that overflow continue to serve others. 

Filling the Well

by Dorothy Baird

Sometime the day comes
when you have given everything
in your attempts to be everything to everyone.
You will know this day
when your small bird cannot flex
it’s wings against the wind.
When you’re sun cannot heave itself
over the horizon, when you lower
your bucket into the well and hear it
thud against the clay.

When this day comes you must take off
the smile that is no longer truly yours
and batten down your heart
that now betrays you with its giving.

You must hold your hands about your ears
for their voices are the siren calls that will bind you to them
and you must walk or limp or run
through the door you can barely see
into the darkness of a lonely room
into the ocean of an empty moor
into the wild arms of the forest.

and sit or walk until from deep within
a trembling starts to pulse
and your diviner’s hand sense
what the oak tree and the sycamore
and the worm that flicks its tail
all know; the source
is the same source
you are thirsting for. Drink deeply
Be still. Be slow. The world can find its way

without you. For you must drink
until your well is filled, until your feathers
plump, until a new sun rises
in the winter of your eyes. Then,
and only then, may you return,
and when they see you, lush
against the light, let them
stand back a little further than before
and be amazed.