One of my close friends once described her learning process as a spiral staircase. This imagery really stuck with me, and I refer to it often. I feel like I’m always coming around to the same issues again and again, but each time from a different place, an elevated place perhaps.
I feel that forging ahead into ideas of permaculture lends itself well to this metaphor as well. I am often grappling with issues of consumerism or conventional thinking, and must reevaluate my responses with a permaculture lens. What I am finding however, is that each time I am working through an issue, I end up seeing things more clearly.
I recently had the same concept described to me in another way; that life itself is a spiral. When I come around to the same issues, it is not the issue which has changed, but it is me who is different.
What I wish for myself is to recognize this spiral in my journey. To know that it is coming might help me to be easier with myself when I cross the same points over and over again. Nature’s patterns are repetitious for a reason.
“When you know better, you do better.”
~Maya Angelou
[…] toward simple living is like a slow journey up a spiral staircase. I often become impatient with myself, wanting to have the changes already figured out, or […]