change – Daily Compass

Buddies

There’s nothing like the support of friends, knowing that there are people who will stand by your side, to get you through. But what happens when you see things differently than your friends, when you are pulled towards an idea, a belief, an interest that is foreign to those who are closest to you? Sometimes friendships are broken by this tug in a new direction, but the deepest connections contain enough elasticity to allow differences not to be divisions.

Who are you bound to with an elastic bond that keeps you connected through all the changes of your life?

Ironworkers

These builders work at heights most of us would find terrifying, constructing the bones of an edifice that thousands of people will walk through and work in without the least concern. They understand that all you need to move around safely is a place to put your foot for the next step.

What girders form the basis for your stability? What do you stand on as you move through the world?

Hanging in Space

Do you ever feel adrift, untethered, as if the very gravity that holds you to the familiar has somehow let go? Of course the experience is terrifying, but the view from that dangerous place can be amazing, giving you a whole new perspective on your world.

What familiar thing might you let go of in order to gain a different view of your life?

Blackberry Jam

The blackberries that ripened in the summer sun meet their end in a pot stirred by a grinning skull. They will lose their individuality, be crushed to something unrecognizable—and be preserved to be re-born in deeper sweetness some winter day. If they had stayed on the vine they would have simply withered away. Sometimes the radical change we fear opens us to undreamed possibilities.

Where do you see radical change in your life or the world around you?

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve is traditionally a time of setting New Year’s resolutions, promises of how we will be better in the coming year than we were in the last. New Year’s Day is traditionally a time of breaking those resolutions. Perhaps instead of resolutions it would be better to articulate dreams or fantasies of what our lives can be, and the seeds that we already see present in our lives which could make those dreams come true.

What seed of something good do you hope will grow in your life in the year to come?