Dancing with Inevitable Change

In the desert, change is nurtured even in stone
by wind, by water, through time.
- Terry Tempest Williams

Mother Nature has her way with the landscape.

Whether water trickles in measured drops

or comes in torrents, eventually it carves changes

into stone, in the outlines of seacoasts,

in the course of a river.

Wind can level cities, form delicate arches

in layers of rock, and create beautiful ripples in the sand.

The power of one of the earth's plates ramming itself

under another can create mountains where none existed.

Massive forces building inside a volcano

eventually find release, whether in swarms of earthquakes,

expulsion of gases and steam, pyroclastic flows,

 or outright explosion.

Change happens, whether in infinitesimally small

increments or cataclysmic shifts, whether or not we like it.

Photo copyright 2006 - Trevor Ducken a/k/a TREVERI
Used with permission.

And so it is with us. 

With the passage of time, we change. 

We grow older. We harden. We soften. 

We make room for love, only to find 

unbearable emptiness when love leaves. 

Our losses mount. 

We may resist change, but we can't evade it. 

We can only find a way to dance with change

 as gracefully as we can once we find our footing. 

We can let reversals work on us and erode our sharp edges. 

We can learn to surrender to what is, as hard as that might be. 

We can choose to take incomprehensible sadness 

in our lives and create meaning from it. 

By doing so, we show the world

 that even overwhelming loss

 can open a space for growth. 

From the rawness of sorrow, 

we gather the materials of change 

and become builders of the grandeur of our lives.

p.s. To see more of Treveri's incredible photos on Flickr,
click here. He's an incredibly talented 20-something
who deserves praise and recognition.