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Renewal Through Ruin
(Pdf can be found below.)
nce upon a time, in a quiet village nestled between rolling
hills, there lived an old potter named Elen. Her hands had shaped countless
vessels over the years — some delicate, some strong — but all of them
carried a part of her soul. Her workshop was filled with rows of pots and
vases, each a testament to her years of skill and care.
One day, Elen noticed something strange. Her kiln, which had always faithfully fired her creations to perfection, seemed weaker. The pots came out cracked, or their glazes dulled. She adjusted her methods, yet the results only worsened. As she gazed at her latest ruined batch, a quiet sadness settled over her heart. The kiln, like herself, had grown old.
Elen faced a difficult choice: to repair the kiln in its current state or destroy it entirely and rebuild. The thought of demolishing something she had relied on for so long filled her with sadness. But deep inside, she knew that repairing it would only delay the inevitable. True renewal couldn’t come from patching the old.
After days of wrestling with herself, she called on the village mason and together, they dismantled the kiln stone by stone. Dust filled the air, and with each crash of crumbling bricks, Elen felt both sorrow and release. The broken kiln lay in ruins, a heap of memories and comfort undone.
But the work did not stop there. With hands weathered by time, Elen joined the mason in crafting a new kiln. The process was slow, and her heart often yearned for what had been. Yet, as each new stone was set into place, she began to see a different kind of beauty — a beauty born not of preservation, but of possibility.
When the kiln was finished, Elen placed her first pot inside and held her breath as the flames roared. The next day, she opened the kiln to find a piece unlike any she had made before. Its glaze sparkled with vibrant color, its form strong yet graceful. It was as though the fire had breathed new life into the clay.
In that moment, Elen understood: renewal is not just the act of making something better. Sometimes it requires the courage to let go of what already is, to dismantle and rebuild, even when it feels like a part of you must die along with it. Sometimes only by letting go of the old can the new come into being.
—William Zeitler
2024 October 22
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