In the words of singer/story teller Nancy Schimmel:
In fourteen hundred and ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
It was a courageous thing to do,
But someone was already here.
The power and privilege of the Europeans led Columbus and those who came after him to believe that they were “discovering” a land that had been occupied for thousands of years.
In what ways might privilege distort how you view your accomplishments or your place in the world?
“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!” Remember when falling down was fun? Of course, literal falling gets more dangerous as our bodies age, but as we get older we also seem to get more cautious about metaphorical kinds of falling. We don’t want to be seen as messing up; we worry that we will be perceived as failures. But some of the world’s great discoveries have come from the creative handling of mistakes—graceful ways of getting up after falling down.
How can you turn a mistake or failure into something that is simply part of the game?
Every now and again you meet a person who just stands out, who just seems to rise above the crowd of the ordinary. Perhaps these people are gifted with a special kind of charisma. Or perhaps they have simply refused to let the world erode away their uniqueness.
How do you cherish, defend and display the things that make you unique?
Each bush and trees stands just a bit apart from the others, claiming its own space, its own right to the sun. But underground all the roots intertwine, and every plant walks the earth’s dark corridors with its fingers interlaced with those of another.
In what invisible ways are you connected with those around you?
In this Irish monument, Gandhi crouches by the words of William Butler Yeats:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
What precious dreams do you offer up to the world?
