Lava, Logs, and Seeking the Truth Behind Your Fears

Mobile:

Drift II (30” x 15”), driftwood, pumice, laurel

On leaping

“But how will I know if they work?” asked little bird nervously.

“Jump,” replied her mom.

Thoughts while making…

Nobody likes falling in lava. Especially when it’s hot.

As a kid, I would jump from log to log as I worked my way up the beach.

If I were to fall, I imagined, I would meet my demise in a pool of molten lava. A dangerous game of hot potato where – it would appear – I was the potato.

In reality, I’d tumble into soft sand or – at worst – the rising tide of a cold Salish Sea.

The tightness in my chest was clear evidence, however, that I believed the sand *was* lava. And to fall was to fail. Or worse. My imagination clearly determining my reality.

Some of these logs – logs that remain to this day – were big and buried deep; remnants of the booms that would be tied up just across the bay, dark giants knotted together, creaking and moaning as they steamed in the early morning light.

Yet, often driftwood was the only thing that connected here to there, safety from danger, this log to that.

I would leap from one to the other, small, unsteady, desperately looking ahead to chart a path to the next big log.

My counselor likes to ask me to imagine the thing I’m fearing – or dreading or hiding from – happening. What if the thing I’m spending so much energy avoiding actually occurred? Then what?

“Mark,” he might gently inquire, “so what would happen if you actually fell?”

“And what would happen if you accepted falling was a part of jumping, leaping, connecting here to there … and not a sign of failure?”

Although I fell many times, I apparently did not die. But those falls weighed heavy on me, until now, laughing as I tumble into the soft sand to make this mobile.

What can you set adrift today that no longer serves you?