Some faith traditions, including Celtic Christianity, see the divine as a subterranean river flowing through all things.
Even earlier Christian writers claimed that Christ was the cohesive force of the universe (Colossians 1:17); and a Greek (pre-Christian) source, quoted by the apostle Paul, claimed that in God we all “live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28).
This cross-cultural idea is expressed through many different analogies and metaphors in a spectrum of faiths, all pointing to a collective but ultimately inexpressible, instinctual concept of the transcendent.
To illustrate this spiritual stream, the photos here are of an ancient spring I came across recently: the Spring of St Helen, in St Helen’s Woods, Hastings.
(Despite living in this town for 20 years and many visits to St Helen’s Woods, I’d never seen this spring. But then St Helen is, among other things the patron saint of new discoveries – very pertinent!)
Natural, clean sources of water like this were, of course, absolutely vital to past communities. Maybe it’s because they were so essential to life and health that they were sometimes described as ‘living waters’, revered as holy, and often believed to have healing properties.
It’s worth remembering that the root of the word ‘holy’ is also related to wholeness, health and holism, so it’s absolutely fitting that clean sources of water, in days of widespread water-borne diseases, should be held in such high regard – as ‘holy’, or sacred.
I particularly like the subterranean stream image of the divine – it strikes a chord with my own intuitive sense of the universe, as I expressed a few years ago in my personal creed:
“I believe there is an undercurrent of Love in every situation,
even the very worst of circumstances:
a spring of compassion and mercy running through the fibre of the universe (the presence of Yahweh),
from which we can draw strength when our own resources run dry.”
As an expression of the Celtic outlook, John Philip Newell, in his enlightening book, Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, has composed this Prayer of Awareness:
Awake, O my soul,
To the flow of the divine deep within you.
Awake to it in every creature, in every woman, in every man.
It is our river of resurrection, the promise of new beginnings.
Awake, O my soul,
To the flow of the divine deep within you.
Awake, O my soul. Awake.
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As usual, all photos mine but no copyright. In other words, feel free to use with my blessing!
Spirit of Nature 