The story of the old woman of the springs
I will tell you a story. It is a story that is older
than any other. This story is deep in our
memories, this story is deep in your soul. It is the
story of the creation of art and healing. It always
begins with the story of the old woman of the
springs. She has always been seen as the weaver
of our dreams, as the mother of creativity and art,
as the one who could heal. Close your eyes, relax,
let your breathing slow down. We will start from
the ordinary, from your kitchen table, from a
drive in your car, or a hospital room from
wherever you are. And we will take you deeper.
We will go into our imagination on a journey. Let
us go into a mystical forest. It is a secret place, it
is the place that only you can see, it is a place in
your imagination . You can find it in any moment.
You will find it by becoming ill, by being in a life
crisis, by seeing death, by falling in love, by
becoming an artist. First, imagine that you are on
a path. It is a narrow path, the ground is dirt, it is
hard enough so it is comfortable to walk on. It is
the path of the creative healer. As your feet find
it, you can imagine that you start to walk. Feel
the hard ground, hear your footsteps fall, feel the
grass on the sides of the path touch your legs.
Smell the air, feel the warm soft breeze on your
face. As you walk you begin to feel differently,
the air itself changes, it opens and fills with
light., it expands and as it expands, you expand
too. Your eyes open wider. your ears can hear
more clearly. Your body moves by itself and your
breath is not only yours anymore.As you go down the path, your way darkens and
narrows slightly. The leaves touch your skin and
the soft earth caresses your feet. The warm moist
air glistens on the leaves like dew drops and the
energy within you flows outward. As you look
ahead, you can see an emerald pool down a short
hill. It is round and beautiful and it shines in the
afternoon sun. It is on the bottom of a glade of
small trees.. The pool is deep blue and perfectly
round and in its center is a spring that flows
upwards from the earth as pure clear water. You
can see the bubbles coming to the surface in
whirlpools, you can almost hear the bubbling as it
goes on forever. Now look upwards on the
ground next to the spring. Above the spring, she
sits, in perfect and eternal peace. She is the most
beautiful creature you have ever seen, she is a
woman of pure spirit. As you look at her, you
can see that she changes as you see her. One
moment she is the virgin Mary looking down on
you with perfect love. One moment she is your
lover, looking at you with eternal desire, and in
the next moment she is an old woman with a
loom who weaves the silver and golden threads
that make the springs and the earth itself. And
then, in another moment she is a turtle who has
sat forever on the side of the spring watching all
of it being born. As she sits and changes like the
light you can see that she has been there forever
and has created the world. She weaves the fibers
of her most beautiful dream. She weaves art and
healing as one. She weaves each of us into the
vision as artists, as healers. She weaves the very
spirals that we travel on, on the energy that
makes us fall in love. She is weaving this story as
I am telling you. She is weaving this book as her
song on earth. She is singing to us.Now look more closely. She sits on the edge of
the spring and as she looks down inside the
spring, she can see the eternal wellspring of
creativity and she can see your life. She has
meditated here for a million years and she can
see the water spring up from the very center of
her own heart. She sees how beautiful she is,
was, and will be. She sees how it always flows,
and how it will flow for a million lifetimes. For
each lifetime, each of our ancestors before us
from the first one, she has sat there. She has been
there for all of eternity. You can see that out of
the spring comes a turquoise light. It shines on
her face and on yours. You can see that she is
very ancient. If you look closely you can see that
a part of her is young and youthful, and a part of
her is very old. Look at her hands. As she sits,
and you look at her hands, it is almost as if she
holds a magic wand, from which she is weaving a
magic web. You can see that she looks deep into
the springs, and from the center of the spring you
can see the energy go up into her hands. She
weaves a magic web for you. She catches the
springs energy and power, and weaves it into the
earth. She sees it and her hands can feel it. When
you look at her hands closely, you can see that
she is weaving a spiral of light, and if you look
very closely at what her hands are weaving, you
can see that it is the light from exploding nebula
that come from the deepest inner depths. This is
the moment and source that is the creation of
images. As she takes the dream of art and healing
from the spring, she takes it to each one of us and
weaves it into our hearts. There is a string inside
of each strand of woven web. These strings go
from her hand and fly up as one, to each one of
us, to you, up into the center of your heart. You
are in the place where time and space are not
limited and these threads come up like spirals
and you can see them go into infinity and they go
up and down in the past, present, and the future .
She holds the interlocking connections together at
the side of this eternal spring. She can see us
always, she sees us always. And now, we can see
her. She is weaving the web and holding the
connections together. We can see that we are
connected to many others. We are connected to
everyone who is healing themselves with art from
the beginning of time to the end of time. As we
see her, we realize that we too are part of her
dream. It is the ancient dream of art and healing
as one. She sings to us in her eternal chant. "Each
of you is an artist. Each of you is a healer". The
power of the springsThis ancient story of the old woman and the
springs is true. It is paralleled in anthropology,
art history, and in the history of religions. And it
is paralleled to in our own body's physiology and
our memories of hearing sounds and seeing
colors in utero and of birth. Every culture has a
healing spring and a woman who watches over it.
Native cultures tell us that the woman of the
springs sits above each spring and speaks of the
secrets of the earth. They tell us that all the
springs are connected and the same woman
speaks to everyone at each spring. They tell us
that there are women in the tribe that still can
understand the voice of the old woman of the
springs. They say that if you listen, her voice can
be heard next to any spring. Lourdes in France
and Tinos in Greece are two of thousands of
springs that are places of healing pilgrimages
today. There are many springs that the Virgin
Mary has shown to people in visions. Stone
circles and Megaliths have always been
associated with healing rituals. Ley lines cross the
earth with the energies of healing and in England
the ley lines are believed to be male and female,
and where they cross they join. Sacred spots on
earth have always been associated with healing
energy and have been worshipped in ancient
times, tribal times, and recent times. In one spot
often next to a spring there will be an Indian
mound, a church, and a new age pilgrimage site.
She still speaks to us though the ancient woman
of the springs, she does.Michael Samuels, M.D. and Mary Rockwood Lane, R.N. from their book
Creative Healing, How anyone can use art,
writing, music, and dance, to heal body
and soul
