Can we be inspired by catastrophe?

Can we be inspired by catastrophe?

Our friends visited the other day with their 2-month old daughter. In speaking about how they chose her name, they explained the etymology of the word “catastrophe”, (which isn’t her name, but it shares a common root). Catastrophe means to “go down” (kata) and then to “turn” (strophe), to pierce the film of normalcy and mess things up. To dig into, then turn over, to change the knowns into unknowns, to require or leave space for something new. We may even think of this word as melodramatic when applied to day to day life, but it feels much more perceptible to me now.

Personally, this summer has been marked by sudden endings. Some of you have told us your stories of catastrophe. There has been many lives turned over, many stories that no longer make sense. I think even in the quaintest environment, our backyard garden, we rip the carrots from the soil, turn the ground over, wait for a new beginning. In some relative scale, it is a catastrophe.

We are looking ahead to September, it’s kind of like new years, we ask, what is needed now? So many of us come and go from our mats anonymously, and that can be a safe and precious thing. But there is also an opportunity to encounter each other in a new way, without moving posture to posture, and to leave space for the possibility of connecting.