It's a charming story indeed Hannah, and vert synchronous - I can see what you say about the compassion Jen, however my first intuition was to see it another way: for me it metaphors all the little things we take so seriously in the micorcosym of our lives yet in the shadow of a voluminious universal wave that could sweep us away at any moment. How can a bigger picture view lift our eyes up from the sidewalk?

I was just out on Dartmoor having written this article and my car overheated (again!). Funnily a little dog ran out in front of the car and was literally dancing for me - it was at that point I noticed the gauge in the red. I was right out in the middle of nowhere (a metaphoric 'end of the world'). Now on my kind of car, it could also be an expensive job to fix, were it to blow the cylinder head, which could happen if I'd continued to drive. But the dog was funny, and the sun was shining, and I'd just written this post. How could I take it all seriously? In the grand scheme of things, what did it really matter? So I pulled over, had fun with the dog and waited, until a solution landed - which was to put the heater on full blast. It kept the engine cool long enough to get me to a garage.

For me this is the point that I'm trying to get across - how when we work into it deeply, understanding the bigger picture can make life in the microcosym so much easier. It helps us relax. Paradoxically I find when you stop needing it, a solution always seems to land.

Open