well or w/hole? (part i)

When will I be well?

When was I ever well?

In the beginning

I had wellbeing, 

I was a being of wellness 

because I lived in a beingwell,

a cocoon, a shelter, a haven; 

those childhood homes, 

where my parents held me in safety, safely,

surrounded, enclosed, beloved,

so I could be well, learn well 

how to become a being,

who knows how to be well within

wherever she comes to find herself, 

knows well how to create her own being 

later, knows how to create out of 

her enveloping well for her own wellbeing, 

knows how to create 

so that where she wells up, 

is where others may be well; 

may the well of her being 

become the source of wellbeing for others;

so all shall be well.

Throughout my time as artist in residence at the New Ashgate Gallery in Farnham (see footnote) in August and September, this poem, (written in mid-July as I was beginning my research), faced visitors as they entered my open studio (above). It makes clear the themes which I continue to unravel as a disabled artist, and my love of word-play shines through particularly.  My ongoing project, which I have called

 ‘bright -+/well’

offers a lot of scope for such meandering mutterings about meaning.  When seen in a large font on the wall, this name works as a thought provoking device for visitors, whether they are residents of Farnham, and familiar with the years of controversy surrounding the site, or not. 

Yet what meanings are changed – or offered? – when the two words are both joined and split up by a dash (or is it a minus sign?); a plus sign (or a shorthand for ‘and’?);  with a slash, a dividing device which says ‘either/or’ in binary terms, (or a joining device which says ‘both/and’ in inclusive terms)?  How I read these punctuation marks depends on the experiences I bring to them, coupled with my willingness to stay open to all the possible meanings that they might signify for others.  Word-play is not just an intellectual delight for me, it is a spiritual necessity, a discipline and a challenge.

An example of this is the way that wholeness and wellness are separated and interlinked throughout the long poem I am writing, tentatively called ‘the bright well’ (of which the above poem will form a section).  Wellbeing is a term used to talk abut the health of the whole person: body, mind, spirit.  As someone who lives with a chronic health condition, I have learnt at my cost that these three cannot be split whenever one is talking about wellness of the body, the mid or the spirit.  For, even at the level of linguistic heritage, there is an integral link between wholeness and holiness if one looks at the derivation of these words in the English language.  

Whole

as an adjective is derived from the Old English word hal meaning “entire; unhurt, uninjured, safe; healthy, sound; genuine, straightforward,” which in turn is derived from the Proto-Germanic *haila– meaning “undamaged” (source also of Old Saxon hel, Old Norse heill, Old High German heil meaning “salvation, welfare”). 

Health

as a noun is derived from a similar set of linguistic associations, from Old English hælþ meaning “wholeness, a being whole, sound or well,” from Proto-Germanic *hailitho, (source also of Old English hal, “hale, whole;” Old Norse heill “healthy;” Old English halig, Old Norse helge “holy, sacred;” Old English hælan “to heal”).  With these same root-words it is not hard to see how Middle English usage saw the rise of the idea that ‘to heal’ someone was also ‘to whole’ someone.

Well

as an adverb comes from the Old English word wel, meaning “abundantly, very, very much; indeed, to be sure; with good reason; nearly, for the most part,”. The derivation of the verb

to well

in English, meaning ”to spring, rise, gush,” from the Old English wiellan, and “to boil, bubble up, rise” from Proto-Germanic *wellanan, meaning “to roll”. 

A well,

meaning a “hole dug for water, spring of water,” comes from the Old English wielle (West Saxon), welle (Anglian) “spring of water, fountain,” from wiellan (as above). “As soon as a spring begins to be utilized as a source of water-supply it is more or less thoroughly transformed into a well” [Century Dictionary], which then becomes the figurative sense of “source from which anything is drawn” in Middle English.

In my fanciful terms, the combination of these derivations and usages means that wellbeing comes to mean something like an abundantly rising, bubbling, source of healing to be drawn upon, which makes one whole.  And if that source is available in this place, then what meanings do the various usages of the word ‘bright’ add?

This is all ‘thinking out loud’ (since I often write to find out what I think), trying to find a working definition which will be refined as I do more research into the specific site which is under the new development and write more exploratory segments of ‘the bright well’.   All this work has it roots which stretch back into conversations I have been having with neuropsychiatrists at the Maudsley Hospital, London, since 1991 and my insistence that if I can’t be well, I can at least, with sufficient soulwork, be whole.  The built environment which surrounds me, the places I inhabit, can either help or hinder this direction of soultravel.

footnote:

the bright -+/well project:

Arising from work made during my residency at the New Ashgate Gallery in the summer of 2023, I am experimenting with ways to combine, layer and merge photography, painting, printing and poetry around four main themes: 

• how a single space/place changes through time; 
• how the people of each era leave their vestigial marks on the landscape;
• how the act of building an urban environment affects the well-being of those whose labour crafts our homes, shops, offices;
• as well as how the finished built environment affects the wellbeing of those who live in, work at, or visit to, that place.

I am exploring these themes with reference to a single place: a new town-centre, mixed commercial and residential development by Crest Nicholson PLC, named BrightWells Yard in Farnham, which has a Grade II listed Georgian house called BrightWell at its heart, in which I used to work in 1998, when it formed a part of the Redgrave Theatre.