Once, a farmer’s donkey fell into a well. While the owner was wondering what to do, the animal cried pitifully for hours. In the end, the farmer made a decision: to bury the well together with the donkey. He told himself that the donkey was already very old anyway, and that the well would have to be filled in sooner or later. It simply wasn’t worth the effort to pull the old animal out of the pit.
So he called his neighbours to help him fill in the well. Together they grabbed their shovels and began throwing earth into the deep hole.
The donkey immediately understood what was happening and started braying loudly. But after a while, to everyone’s surprise, the animal fell silent. After they had thrown in a few more shovelfuls of earth, the farmer couldn’t contain his curiosity and decided to look inside the well to see what was going on. And he was astonished by what he saw.
With every shovelful of dirt that fell onto its back, the donkey did something incredible. As the neighbours kept throwing more and more soil into the well, each time the animal would shake it off and step up onto the growing pile beneath its feet. It didn’t take long before everyone, in amazement, saw the donkey rise above the rim of the well, leap out, and run forward with all its might…
I love this story. To me, this donkey was a true Alchemist. It practised the art of turning mud into a ladder to the sky. For me, this is not the story of “the donkey that fell into the well,” but the story of “the donkey that climbed out of the well.”
It is the story of climbing out of the holes we sometimes fall into (without wanting to and without knowing what we might have done to deserve it) — by not taking things personally, but with donkey-like composure, stepping on what could crush us and moving forward.
Kameliya
