Lately you remind me of the person Robert Hass describes in his poem “Time and Materials”: “someone falling down and getting up and running and falling and getting up.” I’m sending you my compassion for the times you fall down, and my admiration for the times you get up, and my excitement for the times you run. It has probably become clear to you by now that the falling down isn’t a shameful thing to be cursed, but rather is an instrumental part of the learning process that is teaching you marvelous secrets about getting back up and running.

Goodness I loves me some Rob Brezsny…  This is my life.  I always get up and run again just for the feel of the wind in my hair and beating of my heart.  Scraped knees heal.

Needing a creative disruption in my routine, I hiked into a forest I’d never visited. The late afternoon light was wan and the wind was chilly. In places, the trail narrowed to a scruffy rut barely big enough for me to walk on, leading me to wonder if I was reading my map wrong. Three times this happened, but always the wider path resumed. Were there bobcats here? When I spied a flash of fur in the distance, I wished I’d researched that subject before I’d come. Still I pressed on. Then I came upon a single segment of a wooden fence, inexplicable in this remote area. One end of its upper slat had come loose and fallen. Moved by a whimsical urge to insert order into the midst of my disorientation, I fixed the slat. My mood brightened, my anxiety dissipated, and the rest of my hike was filled with small epiphanies. Everything I just described, my fellow Cancerian, is an apt metaphor for your week ahead.

I would venture to say that yesterday I put a slat back into place.  It felt good.  Here’s to more slat fixin’ this week.  Woot!