The well
Two days ago, I went to the well early in the morning to fetch at the start of the day. I looked down into the well and realised something was different; usually the water body takes a circular form after the concrete rings that were used to construct the well. Instead of the beautiful, round and clear circular water body, our water looked like an apple with a small part of it bitten off. The small bite was represented by the sand that was gradually encroaching into the water body. Though wet, the sand was solid, standing at about six inches above the water itself and sloping down irregularly to join the water. While fetching you must be careful to throw the fetcher into the water part and not the sand part of the apple. If you hit the sand, you risk a chance of contaminating the water for the next thirty minutes or thereabout. It is the beginning of the year; we are in the dry season! I looked up at the cashew tree that has a symbiotic relationship with our well; it gets water for its roots while it shelters the well with its generous branches. The flowers of the great tree were sprouting; it will soon be seed time.
Then I remembered it was the same way last year, exactly the same. I deduced my first lesson; life is a circle. Each beginning awaits its end as surely as each end awaits another beginning. Hence it is common for events in life to reoccur in exact same manners since life is a series of ends and beginnings. Also, contrary to popular saying, there are two constant things in life, not one. Not change alone. They are beginnings and ends or ends and beginnings in whatever order. Remember, they form change!
In the dry season
My second set of lessons came in torrents as I fetched the first bucket out of the well. I imagined the usually round water body was our lives. It is no longer complete since we have started to use it. The encroaching solid sand is the past and the depleted water body is the future. We are young and strong, thus barring unforeseen events, our future is colossal compared to our past. The future represents the big, liquid, clear and unformed water body while the past appropriates the formed, solid, cloggy and small clump of sand. The past is gradually eating into the future, either we fetch the water or not the sand keeps growing. The future is unformed; I could still manipulate it to my advantage. If I throw the fetcher carelessly, it will fall on the sand. I should not allow my past to cloud my future! The sand stands higher and easier to reach than the water, I should reach deeper for better results by looking far into the future. Above all, make good use of the future, it is steadily being depleted!
My third lesson came out of an event in the past. The sand was growing and the water was reducing, then suddenly, it rained! The sand disappeared and the water became a big circle once again but it was dirty. Eventually after two days, it cleared out and was as clean as ever. The rain is none other than the grace of God; it can wipe out the past and renew a future without recourse. However when that grace comes with the blessings, do not rush. The two days of dirty water provide a time of rethink. This period ensures that when the sand starts forming again, when we look in retrospect, we are merrier. We dip into our clean circle after these two days knowing exactly what to do and how to do it. At those times when we follow unsure paths, lets pause and ask for the GRACE.
The well of knowledge.
I learnt my last lesson on returning to the well two days later. The sand had disappeared and the water was a big circle again but it had not yet rained. I realised water had sprung out of the well! Moreover it happened because nobody fetched the water for a day. Definitely we all have a spring inside us; we can renew ourselves from the inside. The time, the day without fetchers; those are the moments we spend alone musing over past actions and strategising on future ones. In essence, those periods are powerful. The periods you spend with yourself in constructive thinking. They renew the future and deplete the past, they give us more alternatives. Please, no matter how little, spend time alone.
After all of these, I renamed our well the well of knowledge!!!
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