The Well of Eternal Youth... Part One: The Map beneath the map ...a retelling of a story from my notebook...

   Before me was laid out a map of the World. An ancient and beautiful map. As I gazed at it, a deep wondering was in me: ‘Where in the World was the Well of Eternal Youth?’ Upon the instant, a faint gold line appeared from the land where I was and moved across the map. As it did so it changed colours . . . antique gold entwined with ruby red and emerald and sapphire blue . . . all the deep, rich colours of old illuminated manuscripts. A hidden line it was; but now revealed and full of light; and drawn out into a thin and serpentine line that led across the World.

   In me, in the same instant, I knew this thing: That because I followed the tracing line with the eyes of my heart more than through the eyes of my intellect, it grew stronger and deeper and penetrated through the surface map.

   It sank through to the map beneath. To the living map which is always underneath all things; which had we the eyes to see would give us the answers to all the questions asked of our own heart. For there was no hidden thing which was not known; and where in me I was known: there I could see: and there I could know the things beneath.

   I saw the tracing line go all around the World. Its colours imperceptibly changing all the time . . . as though it was seeking. As though it were questioning for me searching out all the deep things of God and the answer to my question: ‘Where in the World was the Well of Eternal Youth?’

   As I watched, I saw the beautiful line follow the full circle of the World and return to me: for it never stopped until it found me, and where it found me, it answered me: ‘In your own heart the well of eternal youth: for in you in your own ending a well of water springing up unto everlasting life through my Son; and whoever drinks of this water he shall never thirst.’

  And, all at once, I drank my fill from the Well at the World’s End! Here was the Well of Eternal Youth! Where there was an ending of the old surface World in me, it was found! For here was a beginning of the new inner World in me! So, here, life was revived in a continual renewing of life; and all the while I ‘died:’ which was really living! And so here was youth, forever! The Well was beneath! And I rejoiced, and circled the World in one second. The answer, it was so small it had been lost and forgotten.

                                                                                                                                                                (-The Pearl)

                                                  

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  The Well’s foreshadowing ‘picture,’ its mystical symbol in the Earthly Realm, it was drawn upon the ancient map before me. It was where I stood in spirit on the land at the End of the World: upon the holy Isle of Iona, in the faraway isles off the West Coast of Scotland. There in my heart, I stood upon the brink of its windswept hill of Dun I: in being given the underneath meaning of its name: Done I: and now, I’m Done with I. And, yes, Dumb I: for now I know that the Well of Eternal Youth, it begins where I know I am nothing and I can let my self go and be free! Upon the Isle of Iona, ‘I own her’ within my own heart!