People have gathered in Totnes for many hundreds of years and a significant part of what has drawn them and enabled community to flourish here is the abundance of water. Not only has Totnes been a vital place for trade and travel thanks to the River Dart, whose tidal channels are deep enough to provide a practical route to and from the sea at Dartmouth. But Totnes also has at its heart a healing well, where water continually flows from a narrow culvert leading back into the hillside behind and then out through a stone chamber, through three spouts and into long stone troughs known as toad, long crippler (apparently an old word for a slow worm) and snake. Since at least the mid fifteenth century, these holy waters have been know as the Leechwell and credited with healing powers. The well was used as a town water supply until the 1930s and still draws many visitors, both human and otherwise. It lies at the meeting of three old paths and its waters flow into a nearby triangular immersion pool and through the recently restored Leechwell Gardens and on towards the River Dart.
On the second Sunday of September our pilgrim band gathered outside the historic Kingsbridge Inn in Leechwell Street. From here our pilgrimage guide for the day, Rev’d Deborah Parsons – Team Vicar of Totnes, encouraged us to settle into some silence and stillness, before beginning a journey of both outer and inner descent. As we walked down towards the Leechwell and spent time beside its clear waters, Deborah invited us to take this opportunity to inwardly begin a journey of letting go, to start to empty the often overflowing vessel of thoughts and concerns that we each often carry in heart and mind. As we each silently reflected, she read us the first part of her prayer:
The Prayer of the Empty Water Jar
Jesus, I come into the warmth of your presence
knowing that you are
the very emptiness of God.
I come before you
holding the water jar of my life.
I want to be filled.
I want somehow to channel
your living water into my bowl.
Your eyes meet mine
and I know what I’d rather not know.
I came to be filled
but I am already full.
I am too full.
This is my sickness.
I am full of things
that crowd out
your healing presence.
A holy knowing steals inside my heart
and I see the painful truth.
I don’t need more,
I need less.
I am too full.
I am full of things that block out
your golden grace.
I am smothered by gods
of my own creation.
I am lost in the forest of my false self.
I am full of my own opinions
and narrow attitudes,
full of fear, resentments, control,
full of self-pity and arrogance.
Slowly this terrible truth pierces my heart.
I am so full
there is no room for you.
Each of us was invited to choose a shell from a water vessel Deborah carried with her, as a symbol of all that each might wish to let go of and as we continued on our journey, through the Leechwell Gardens with its view across to St. Mary’s Church, and down along the stream towards the river, we each chose our own moment to let that shell fall…
Contemplatively, and with compassion,
you ask me to reach into my water jar.
One by one, Jesus, you enable me
to lift out the things
that are a hindrance to my wholeness.
I take each one to my heart
and I hear you asking me,
“Why is this so important to you?”
Like the murmur of a gentle stream
I hear you calling –
“Let go, let go, let go!”
I pray with each obstacle
tasting the bitterness and grief
it has caused me.
I offer each obstacle to you.
You take it from me
and as you do so your eyes look at me
with such gentleness, such love, such acceptance.
Our journey of descent and letting go concluded at the riverside, as we gathered on Vire Island to watch the waters flow down towards the sea and to share lunch and conversation before we set off for the second stage of our pilgrimage. Now we were climbing, up and out of the town and into the rolling fields and hills around Totnes. Along the way we encountered an often overlooked wayside well on the rough track above Bourton Lane. After a dry summer, some damp earth was all that was visible of this water source – an appropriate symbol for the final part of Deborah’s prayer:
Finally …
I sit with my empty water jar.
I hear you whisper,
“You have become a space for God.”
In utter surrender to your love
that will not let me go
I wait to receive the divine gift – for it is pure gift-
of your living water.
It comes gently, in silence, with grace,
Your Water of Life rises
from the very depths of my soul
where you, my dear Lord, dwell
and fills every part of my being.
Now there is hope.
Now I am ready to be a channel of life.
I have given up my own agenda.
There is nothing left but God.
Our journey brought us finally to the crest of the hill, from which we had a long view from moors to sea. Here we shared our closing communion and our reflections on a beautiful day together, before carrying our blessings back home…