We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. -- Carl Sagan
What a shift into the school year. Fires ablaze, hurricanes awash... I noticed the other day that the maple leaves have started coming down, perhaps not yet in earnest, but definitely with great sincerity. The birds seem to be eating through the bird seed faster now too, as they prepare for fall. And on my way home, a blue heron glided serenely over my car, seemingly unaware of the chaotic state of the world.
Endings begin as we head into fall. And in the ending are new beginnings, because that seems to be the way of things. So what have I been thinking about? Endings and beginnings and beginnings and endings and waxings and wanings and cycles of cycles.
But besides that, I've been thinking about how we use frameworks to understand the world. We put structures in place that help us create perspective. Sometimes we see flowering and fruiting of things connected to structures, beauty and benefits. And sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in these structures, these webs we weave, and forget several things.
The structure is no more the thing than our skeletons comprise the entirety of our selves. Our skeleton gives us shape and provides resistance and structure our muscles work with and against that allow us to move, but they are only one of many components that comprise us.
There are many layers of structures, starting out with sub-atomic and growing to universal structure - and everything in between. There are structures all the way down. But it is still important not to lose sight of the fact that the structure is still not the whole.
The flowering and fruiting may be of the structure but are likewise components of the structures we create. But there are structures that we don't create, that we may not even know about, and they function fine without us, and they may (or may not) flower and fruit. And the sum is still greater than all the parts.
When things seem too big, too much, and even the structures I use to try to frame and understand things seem too big, that's when I go for a walk and find my feet connected back to the ground beneath me, often by the water, under a big sky, with the wind dancing and swirling around reminding me that there are things bigger than our frameworks, things more whole than our structures, and things that have been here for ages longer than we have been here, and will be here longer than we will be here. Somehow, when faced with structural chaos, remembering this brings me some semblance of peace.
May the road rise up to meet your feet, may the wind be ever at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face, and may the rain fall soft upon your fields.
With love and curiosity that are bigger than the structures that would wish to contain both,
--Susan