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?
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?
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?
Ripples keep moving out indefinitely until something stops them. Whether the ripples are created by water falling in a pool or by the sound waves produced by a violin, every wave continues until its path is blocked. When you put something out in the world, you never can know how far it might go.
What waves will you make today? How will you get out of the way so that someone else’s ripple can move forward?
When the tire is no longer useful for a car, it is still good for a swing. But when summer ends, or children grow up, what is the swing good for? Sometimes the answer comes with patience, sometimes with determination, sometimes with burst of creativity that makes everything new.
How do you hold on to your sense of purpose in life during the times when you feel adrift?
