Eight years ago I was in Orkney, Scotland and ruins were everywhere. I slept in the shadow of a ruined palace, toured the remains of a buried Neolithic village, wandered what is left of the oldest known stone circle. I remember the pervasive sense of unknowing—the inability to really know the stories behind these places. To finally be back in the land of my lineage, sensing the echo through time, felt like grounding, restoration, affirmation. And yet I also felt sorrow and unappeased curiosity—a longing to know what I never could, to retrieve something of a past that slipped through my fingers like water.
Ruins, by nature of their slow decay, become places where time collapses, obscured portals to the past. They are tangible reminders of our potential as humans to leave behind our remains for thousands of years. Ruins reassure us even as they leave us in a state of curiosity, lament, and longing. Yet they also, in their process of ruination, become something new in their own right distinct from what they used to be—a new place with a new purpose and meaning.
Right now, it seems inescapable that we will spend most of the rest of our lives longing for a time before—an enchanted time that may not have truly existed but in our memories feels safer, steadier, more controllable – but that’s only a partial truth and we need to remember that. There was still injustice and uncertainty but simply by virtue of belonging to the recent past, it is knowable, steady and fixed in the way the future never will be. And yet, it seems we are heading into a time of increasing and pervasive chaos where towers topple on a daily basis.
As the structures holding our lives fall around us, it will be normal to want to put them all back together. We need only to look to the pandemic to see how we scurried to return to “normal” and somehow it all just feels worse now. We denied opportunities to build something different because we weren’t willing to sit with the discomfort of further disrupting an already crumbling system. How many times did you hear someone say, “The pandemic only highlighted what was already breaking or broken,” and yet in how many cases did we go back to the broken ways?
If we are moving within the cycles of life, the dark moon reminds us that things must come to an end. When their time has come, we must let them go. The more we resist, the more we spend our energy fruitlessly, like trying to hold back the tide with a teaspoon.
As the moon is reborn as a sliver of light, the fallen tower become a place for new life. The fungus, moss and lichen will come first, followed by critters seeking shelter, vines looking to climb, shrubs spreading their branches. These creatures know how to make the most of new opportunities, because they are clear in their purpose and skill. For example, mosses have made their success growing in the small microclimate created where air flows over a surface.
Most of what is falling right now are not actual buildings, though certainly wind, fires and flood will cause physical destruction. It’s no less easy to watch the destruction of institutions, processes, practices, ways of life that have given our lives structure, stability, and purpose. We may not have the time we need to process our grief; the longing will be acute. But if we scramble to rebuild exactly what was there, what good are we doing? There are reasons some things are left to crumble to dust. Those remains may stir feelings in us for centuries to come, but nonetheless, someone decided to abandon them for a reason. Can we trust ourselves and others to abandon that which we no longer need?
To be clear, I’m not advocating for a passive, hopeless, head-in-the-sand response to the state of the world. I’m reminding us of the importance of being willing to let go. Because when things are falling apart, clinging to everything is not possible or helpful. And you can’t know what you want to save if you’re too busy picking up every fallen piece, too distracted to consider which ones you are actually grieving.
I am thinking about a recent autocorrect my phone made to a text I was sending. I was trying to type: “finding joy where I can!” and instead what sent was: “finding joy where I can’t.” I immediately edited the text, but within moments both my friend and I realized there was something much better about the original message. It could be the rallying cry of this moment. Find joy where you can’t. What is the worst thing happening in your world? What terrible thing is happening? What is being destroyed? What is threatened? Pick the place where you just “can’t” the most and figure out what joy—what enlivening action can you take in that space.
At our peril we underestimate the small things. A single spark can set a city burning. A computer virus can take down a global network. Maybe your joy feels small, like the moss softening a jagged stone. You will never know all the outcomes of your actions. You don’t have to in order to make a difference.
As you wander the rubble, keep watch for the joy—it’s nearly always there on the underside of grief, longing, and nostalgia. Within which ruins will you cultivate new life? Which crumbling stones will you choose to grow between? What will you abandon?
