Circles by Switchfoot
Circles are interesting to me, because it seems to me that life goes in circles. Our planet spins around the sun and gives us a full year with seasonal changes. It rotates to give us day and night. When something is traveling in circles it seems to me to be flowing in time. It’s going with the flow. If it is changing, it’s doing it in a time frame that's imperceptible to us.
In the horse world some of the top training disciplines like dressage and reining spend time training their horses to make circles at different speeds. They are graded on their ability to make a perfect circle at a consistent speed. From the outside it may look boring. “Hey look at that horse go around in circles, like a carousel”. However, the point of the training is not just to make a circle. The point is to have a horse that can be responsive, flexible and get to the destination it's being directed. If a horse can go both directions at different speeds (consistently) on a circle it means they can go in a straight line too. It means they are responsive and flexible. It means they are capable of staying the course to wherever they are sent.
The training a horse goes through is supposed to help them rise to the bigger challenge of being outside the arena. Going on a trail rides over varying terrain or being in a large area with lots of people (think Bronco’s mascot horse in a full stadium). Many times a horse that is perfect in the arena loses it’s brain outside the arena. This leads to either a lot more training outside the arena or a lifetime of arena riding.
Arena riding is a lot like a big hamster wheel to me. This stationary wheel that makes you think you are going somewhere because it’s moving and yet you are staying in the same place. It may be okay to start there, it can help you build communication, endurance and conditioning. It’s a safe place to learn something new (maybe). But there comes a time where you have to be able to step out of being in one place and find new challenges.
That’s the time when you ask yourself, “Am I alive?”, “Am I on purpose?”.
What circles are you following in life? Are you training to be more flexible and determined to get to the direction you are heading? Or do you have hamster syndrome?
October 21, 2019 04:00 PM