“Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.”

– Pearl S. Buck

If you ask just about anyone who knows me to tell you something about me, the word, “family” will probably be a part of their response.  That would be fair, since I am now in my forty-second year of actively parenting.  Although I have done some jobs for pay from time to time, my career has been as a mother.  By the time my resident granddaughter graduates from high school, I will have forty-five years under my belt, and I guess I will be ready to retire.  I have been fortunate to have a husband and partner who has encouraged me to pursue my career with gusto, even though it leaves him with sole responsibility as our family’s breadwinner.  I have loved my chosen work, but it only expresses me — it does not completely define me.  When people try to define us by what we do, it is always good to know who we are.

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.

I love that Pearl Buck says “springs,” not “spring,” because that is exactly how it works.  When I go inside to the place where I sit alone, I am able to find who I really am — a being of Light living my life in a body made of flesh and bones and possessing thoughts and emotions that allow me to interact with others.  In the times of renewing meditation, I can shed the earthly vessel that confines me and let the Light fill me beyond the limits of my physical existence.  It is then that the springs begin to flow from the fountainhead in the center of my heart and move outward to carry the essence of who I really am to the world where I live and work.  I am not the springs, nor am I the fountainhead — I am the Light that flows with abundance from a place far beyond my understanding and fills me from a stream that never runs dry.

It is vital that we visit our “alone” place again and again.  It is only when we are renewed and our springs flow freely that we can bring who we truly are to the things we choose to do.  We live best with others when we first have learned how to live alone.