There’s an old, disused railway line that runs between Swindon in the North, and Luggershall in the South. At Marlborough the line has to cross the Kennet valley. Having already carved great cuttings through the Downs to keep the railway line level, a great embankment was created out of the chalk taken from the cuttings. The railway crosses the Kennet by way of a rather high, single-span viaduct. The line was closed during the late 1960s and very soon the embankment became overgrown with bushes and trees. Needless to say, for those children living nearby, and I was one of them, the old railway line was a wonderful playground.
On one such exploration, with a friend, we discovered at the foot of the embankment a small spring that bubbled up from the chalk, and by way of a very small stream, the water found its way into the River Kennet. Even then, I had an unformed sense of its sacredness and perhaps even healing qualities. It was a special place.
Sacred springs and Holy wells have been a feature of our spiritual life in Europe, including the British Isles, probably since human beings have inhabited this part of the world. Think of Holy Well in North Wales, the temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath, the Chalice well at Glastonbury and various Saints’ wells dotted around the country. People would travel to take the waters and give offerings to whatever deity or guardian saint was associated with a well.
One such Holy well emerges below a Yew tree in a wooded valley above Eardisley. Its waters run into a stream which passes below the Almeley road at the parish boundary between Eardisley and before that stream makes its way into the Letton Lake and on into the river Wye. It struck me, as I was looking at the waters beneath the bridge, that the area we live in doesn’t just have one stream, but probably dozens, some combining into bigger streams, others taking water all the way down from the hills into the Wye. We live in a magical, or should I say sacred, place. The Wye makes its way from the mountains onto the plain, and from there down to the sea.
It has been said that we find rivers restful, because rivers know where they are going and do not want to go anywhere else. Those who journeyed to these ancient sacred places were pilgrims; they knew where they were going, but for them the journey was as important as the destination.
The late Irish poet and priest John O’Donohue once said that “The pilgrim travels differently. Always in a pilgrimage there is a change of mind and a change of heart. The outer landscape becomes a metaphor for the unknown inner landscape.”
The journey into prayer can be similar. For, to begin with it seems to be focussed outwards and rather static, not a journey at all but staying in one place. But we pray through time, and the events of our outer life will have an effect on the prayer of our inner life. The journey into prayer is like walking back up a river or stream, until we come to its source. Prayer is a pilgrimage, a journey towards God, the very source of our being, and we are accompanied along the way by the same God and source.
Brislington Community News 