Dear Dreamwalkers,
Have I ever shared my practice of visiting my Inner Storyteller? I’ve been doing this internal Dreamwalk for years, going to her cottage as I prepare to write.

I found this visit in my old notes, and though my beloved son, Sean, has passed, I kept that part in the Dreamwalk. This post is for any of you who thirst.

I entered the woods on the way to my Storyteller’s cottage. It was summer this time, and wildflowers grew along the side of the rooted path. I picked a few. On the porch, I took off my shoes and entered barefoot, setting my Storyteller’s staff against the wall and greeting her with the flowers. She already had a mason jar of wildflowers on her windowsill and welcomed me to add mine to the jar. It was the first time I’d ever come to her with a gift, and I realized how I should have been doing that all along and apologized.

“The gift is a gesture. You haven’t brought gifts before, but you have always done chores when you’ve arrived, building up the fire, making tea, sweeping. This time there’s no need to make a fire on this summer’s day, and so the flowers.”

I made tea, and we sat with the redwood stump between us. I told her how well all the June writing conference presentations had gone first in Alaska and then at the retreat in Hood Canal. She poured my tea. “You are exhausted to the bone and you’re brittle,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You have dipped down into your well over and over and poured yourself out, giving drink to others, and you have not bothered to let the well fill up, nor taken a drink yourself. You think the well is for everyone but you. If you keep living this way, you will become so brittle that you will break.”

“How do you do it?” I asked her.

“I drink from the well often. I take the time to let it fill before I give drink to others.” She looked at me.

“It is not selfish to do this. It is sustaining. If I had not lived this way, I would have broken long ago.”
She pointed to my cup, and I drank again. “You can only give others what you have. When you reach the bottom and you’re scraping up the last of your water to give away, you’re risking your life. The brittle tree that does not drink breaks in the wind.”

“I feel that I’m there. That I’ve been giving from a dry place for a long time.”

“I will let you drink from my well,” she said. “Sit very still with your feet on the floor. Breathe and root down. Here is my well-water gathered from the rainfall through the tall trees, forming forest pools, going underground in rivers, water cleaned by earth, stone, and root. This sky water and earth water fills the well. Drink. Drink. Drink.”

There in her cottage, sitting still a very long while, half an hour, an hour, I breathed in and out, as she said the word, “drink” over and over to my breathing. Each time my mind wandered to a worry or a thought I wanted to pursue, she said, “drink,” and brought me back to what I was doing now, drinking from her well, filling up. I was deep in a transcendental state.

Sean called, needing a phone number for an important appointment he’d missed, and I had to get up to fetch that for him since the appointment is necessary for what we’re doing to help him get back on SSI. This deeply rattled me. I was shaking from coming up so fast. Tom took the phone after the call to manage it in case Sean called again, and I returned to the chair and the well meditation, slipping back in and down.
Inhale. Drink. Exhale Drink.
Drink. Drink. Drink . . .

When the meditation was done, she reminded me that I need to do this often right now. I need to get into the habit of doing it regularly, so I’m ready to offer water when it’s needed without going thirsty and depleting myself.

At the door, I turned. “Thank you.”

She spat on her fingers and rubbed her spittle on the glass globe atop my storyteller staff, lighting it, though it was still daylight in the forest.

I left and walked down the trail under the redwoods, the wildflowers dipping to and fro in the wind.

Dreamwalkers, if you like this visit, let me know if you’d like me to share more visits with my Inner Storyteller.

Until next time, Dreamwalkers, walk well.

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