Two days ago I visited “La Source” of the river Sorgue at Fontaine de Vaucluse in Provence, France, where I climbed up the hill to the pool of deep deep green/turquoise clear water and then on my way back down dipped my feet in the waters and drank from the crystal clean tumbling waters .
I really felt wonderful when I tasted the water of the Sorgue from the Source and could sense the strong energy that this place holds embedded in the rocks and the river.
The Sorgue comes from an immense underground network of waters, and has an average flow of 630 million m3 per year, the biggest in France and one of the biggest worldwide. The river is cool and peaceful in the summer, surging and impetuous in spring and fall.
The waters which surge forth from the base of the cliff come from the rainwater and snow melt which infiltrate the ground as they run off Mont Ventoux, the Monts de Vaucluse and Lure Mountain – accounting for a catchment area of 1100 km. The only place this water comes out of the ground is at the Fontaine de Vaucluse, in France.
Approaching the mythic source, visitors enter a place of ancient pilgrimage. Instinctively, arriving at the end of the path overlooking the chasm.
The secret of the Fontaine de Vaucluse, in France is a beautiful mythic story:
“Having gone out to dance with the girls of Isle sur la Sorgue one hot day, the old fiddler Basile fell asleep in the shade, on the road called Chemin de Vaucluse. A nymph as beautiful as the clear waters appeared, took the sleeping man’s hand and led him to the edge of the basin where the Sorgue river opens out. Before them, the waters parted and let them descend between two walls of liquid crystal to the bottom of the chasm. After a long underground walk, the nymph, in the middle of a cheerful prairie sown with supernatural flowers, stopped the fiddler in front of 7 big diamonds. Lifting one of them, she made a strong fountain of water gush forth. And lo, she said, the secret of the spring of which I am the guardian. To make it swell, I take away the diamonds ; with the seventh, the water reaches “the fig tree that drinks only once a year”, and she disappeared as she awoke Basile from his slumber.”
