BACK TO THIS SPACE
Ah, the blog has been silent for almost 6 years.
I am quite sure it is because I kept pushing aside living in the completeness of my own voice, of putting my often crazy mind, some might call it, out to the world. I have, though, been very good at doing a number of things “the right way,” enjoying rewarding relationships and outcomes.
Now there is freshness and anticipation. This space feels new. Even as my outside is showing the natural aging process, my inside feels ageless.
So much is already different. Life continually changes. It shifts in unexpected ways, a common experience for every human being. No one is exempt. It has certainly been a year and a half of that for all of us, along with our individual experiences.
It is why and how Dip Into the Well is finally coming into full being. In all of the shifts and changes, the well has become and is my “go to” place.
I envision introducing wells to children, families, and to people of all ages, stages and backgrounds.
A STORY
A long abandoned property adjacent to my childhood home held little evidence of what was once a house perched up a little hill on a bit of rocky land, known to me as “the old Deyo place.” It was mere remnants.
One remnant was the cistern, a piano or organ upended in it. I visited the cistern many times, always intrigued, and always crept as close to the edge as possible, convinced I would fall in if I took even a half step more. Even now, I feel the uncertain ground under my feet and the trepidation.
My childhood home has a well. From the late 1800s until now that well still provides water once the pump is primed. The well is a treasure, most recently fully available after a tornado went through our property in 2018. Pail after pail served me during days of no indoor water.
CHOOSING THE NAME
Perhaps childhood memories were the catalyst when some ten years ago I chose Dip Into the Well as the name of my business.
The image also meshed with coaching people of all ages who wished to discover what we often refer to as their “life blueprint,” to discern their purpose and from that discovery, make the choice for how to live into it. In my training, the phrase “naturally creative, resourceful and whole” is commonly used. It means that which is already inside each one of us, the qualities that come with our birth.
The challenge, of course, is that we often do not listen to our own voice, our own intuition, our own knowing. It is the challenge of not letting others influence us in ways that erode or compromise our trust in ourselves.
While facilitating the process for others I neglected my own well.
Instead, I lived more as if a cistern was my supply. I was dipping from the surface, into “limited,” and in some cases playing by others’ rules and contracts. I learned much along the way.
When I began my own business I created opportunities that had merit, even fun to create and for specific service to others. I also kept avoiding what I truly wanted to create.
AND NOW
What matters is that my own well called me back to it. It has shown me that it is so much more than I could have fathomed. It is far deeper and more bountiful than any cistern ever could be.
The well is a place to which I go alone and it is now a space at which I gather others. At the well, as a minimum, refreshment and restoration happen.
What I have discovered, or knew but perhaps forgotten, is that my life, my soul, my whole being are immensely lifted up when I stay at the water and give the time to go deep.
The well is a magnificent place…a teacher, guide, companion, friend and giver of surprises.
The well takes me to new realms of gratefulness, joy, discovery, peacefulness letting go, laughter, and lightness, to name a few of its gifts. It comforts me at the same time it exhilarates me and fills me with energy.
In a way that cannot be matched, each well is a source of light.
Though metaphorical, I describe it, feel it and know it as “an imaginary space unlike any other…and also very real.”
I have a vision of a simple but exquisite well always waiting to welcome me.
There is no template of how a well looks or how it serves. It serves me as it is meant to serve me and it will serve you as it is meant to serve you. The well neither demands nor dictates. It simply offers.
ARE YOU CURIOUS TO KNOW A BIT MORE?
Here is a sampling, perhaps like a wine or cheese tasting…a well tasting.
The first and most important is the well of me. The well of my purpose, intentions, gifts, skills, wellbeing, hopes, dreams, intellect, emotions…all that I am. It shows me that when I dip with trust, courage, and openness to receive, I trust myself.
That part of us, the trusting ourselves, gets easily squelched so early in life, the seed we know and become afraid to sow and show.
I think of Anne of Green Gables. Her imagination and authenticity could not be tamped down even when she apologized for it or attempted to “do better.”
We too often apologize, if only inwardly to ourselves, because we hear the voices of “others,” real and imagined, and let them sway us.
What I draw up is far beyond the surface reflection, often cluttered with debris that needs to be skimmed off.
Going down, down, down, I discover the me I have been acquainted with since childhood, the true essence of who I am that got mixed up with essences of who I was influenced to be, light years apart.
The well of me brings me back to me.
The well of you brings you back to you.
Beyond, in all directions, are others…the well of imagination, the well of wonder, the well of age, the well of perspectives, the well of not knowing, and the well of patterns, just a few in the unlimited abundance of wells.
So far I have come upon over 60, some with a bit of the overflow from one to the other, but wells now show up all around me. They make me laugh when they surprise me, bumping into them when rounding a corner in my life that needs exactly what that well has to offer.
Each well contains stories of my own, stories and wisdom of others, and prompts/questions that keep me dipping even deeper.
Each is a catalyst, sending me back with more presence and direction to live the parts of life away from the well.
Each visit transforms.
The well is a place from which I come away feeling in my bones that with a different meaning of the word, all is well. Even if I do not completely feel it, I know it and the knowing is more important than the feeling.
And so it is that Dip Into the Well has come into full being, still to emerge in full expression. Ahhhh…the well of voice.
FINALLY
I claimed what likely wanted to be claimed decades ago. Doing my own thing in my own way in my own voice. My 70s are not too late…they are, in this moment, the best years.
I am home, home in myself.
It is also a home to which I invite all who want to visit.
Dip Into the Well is all and only about the wells. I am just the one who joyously introduces you to them.
The experience is for and about you, uniquely yours to take back into your worlds.
And, when it is that a group gathers at a well in the richness of one another’s presence and gleanings, and then going our separate ways, we will share the strength of communal goodness, of true community with this world that so desperately needs it.
Do check out my website: dawnsullypile.com, Join me on LinkedIn, where there is more information about my offerings or email me at dawn@dawnsullypile.com. My Dip Into the Well Facebook page will soon become visible.