More About All is Well
How We Got Here
Working as a therapist, I became aware of clients attending suffering from malnourishment, dieases such as rickets and muscles wastage. It caused me to wonder how in this nutritionally rich society how people could be experiencing such symptoms.
At the same time, I myself became ill with a fever. This fever lasted five days. During this time I was bedridden, only able to fill my water bottles from the tap before once again collapsing into the bed. On the fifth day, the fever broke in the middle of the night. I sat upright and spoke ALL IS WELL. Something told me this phrase was important, I shakily grabbed my notebook and scrawled it onto a page. Little did I know that phrase would change my life.
When I returned to health, I really felt that the tap water I had ingested during my illness had barely hydrated me, never mind adding to my health. I felt poisoned each time I had drunk from the tap. The smell of chemicals added (fluoride and chlorine) strong within my nostrils. With this in mind never to happen again, I began to search for the wells in the locality.
I found wells that were overgrown, full of debris and silt, with boil water notices upon them. People that I spoke to about them were full of dire warnings of dangers of drinking the water. I began to wonder when we had lost the knowledge of how to keep water potable. Were we that removed from natural and our landscape?
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Cleaning the water
Being a practical woman, I got out the buckets and sieves and shovels and began my journey to physically clean the wells in Ireland. I was wanting to regenerate and revitalise potable water sources in Ireland. I scrapped and scoured the walls and floors, up to my knickers, baled hundreds of litres of water, cleared channels in and out of the well. I began to sleep beside the wells which I cleaned. By emptying them and helping the water gain a bubble and gurgle until the water that flowed glistened and sang.
I spent intimate time with each well, finding satisfaction and peace in my new strange hobby. The more I looked the more wells I found, with the help of OS maps, Google and of course conversation with people living in the locality. I discovered that almost everyone in Ireland has a story about water or the wells. It created the dialogue with people that touched their eyes and warmed their smiles. Each story told of a memory or a cure. I was hooked.
Other Projects Emerge...
A few months later, I sat by a fire upon the Hill of Uisneach, Co. Meath. I found myself surrounded by about 15 other individuals who also had intimate connections with the wells and water sources of Ireland.
Suddenly I realized this was more than just a hobby. That there was a need and a want within people to reconnect with the water sources. Over the last two years, I am honoured to participate and create water-based events around Ireland. Water in Ireland is held with such sacredness and care.
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The All is Well Project, started with just me. It was my own journey of learning on how to clean and maintain our wells for my own use.
I took to listening to peoples stories from around the countrytheir memories of how they remember wells being maintained. The information and inspiration from scientific studies and reports in alternative and natural methods to purify water have greatly informed my work and kept me inspired.
I have with delight, found science-based information on how cures are affected by the mineral composition of the water. It , to me, was evidence between the power of myth and the scientific story we have today. These methods, have become workshop which are then taught to local communities.
With amazement, I have watched this project spread to include whole communities, inspire other projects such a Siul an Craic and with pride, having watched my initial start of getting into the wells become a nationwide project.
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It is my hope that this project continues to spread til we all have potable water sources availible to all people in Ireland.
It is my aim that these precious resources, will be maintained and created as community spaces for people to gather, share a memory, a story or a song. That we can teach our children of where the source of our health appears from.