As you can see by the title of the photo, I visit this place I call “home of the wounded healer” and photograph it with some regularity. I call it that because it personifies for me, the concept I encountered in the work of Henri Nouwan, namely that the best healers are those that have been, themselves, deeply wounded. I say “those” and “themselves,” but do not restrict the powers of healing solely to human beings. Places and creatures of all sorts share that gift.

This home of the wounded healer came into being because humans needed fill to widen the highway that passes by just a few yards away. Bulldozers gouged the earth and truckloads were carried off. Then one day the bulldozers struck a spring and the hole they had dug began to fill with water–beautiful, clear, turquoise water out of limestone bedrock. I like to imagine that at least one iron giant rests peacefully on the bottom of the tranquil lake it is today.

I come here to breathe. I come here when the messiness of life wants to overwhelm me. One day I brought my keyboard and set it up on the rocks above the water and played classical music in appreciation for this place that has gone from being a great wound on the face of the earth to a place of beauty and healing.