Your Living Canvas

I am taking an online class called "Your Living Canvas" through ScarletLime (see sidebar) and there are some leadership challenges to complete (optional) before the class actually begins.  This one was rather interesting.  We were supposed to climb a tree or otherwise go up high somewhere and see the 'world' from a different perspective.  I was going to go up into the attic of our garage and sit for a bit taking pictures.  Then, I remembered a cool experience that I had in Sedona over spring break.  My sister, my niece and I had taken a Pink Jeep Tour (fun!) that was just a little 2 hour ride up into the red hills and back.  We got out of the jeep at one point and did a little hiking.  I was madly taking pictures because this Iowa girl has never seen anything like the rough beauty of Sedona.  Our guide suggested that I go out on a ledge that he showed me so that I could get some cool pics of how the ledge opposite was actually two different rocks separated by a thin slice of air.  I wandered out, sat down (awkward because of my new knee) and started shooting.  The view was so different from what I am used to here in the Heartland.  After a few pics, I got up, narrowly avoided cracking my noggin on an overhead limb and got off of the ledge.
After we got back into the jeep and started down the trail, our guide pulled over and showed us where I had been sitting.  Whoa.  If I had seen where I was going before I did it, I wouldn't have done it.  I would have been too scared.  I was completely struck by that and the parallels that it makes in our lives.  Going out on ledges isn't really as scary when you are doing it as it is when you look back to see where you have been.  How many times have we said, "I can't believe I did that?"  Whether it is starting a business, going to school, becoming who you have always wanted to be, raising children, having children, I don't think that any of us would necessarily go out on those ledges if we knew how scary it was going to be.  Sometimes, not knowing is so much easier because there is no time to think, you just act and do it and move on with things.  Remember the ledge.

This is a picture of the ledge where I eventually wound up sitting.

This is the ledge where I took the previous picture.  I thought the little gap was so cool.  Our guide showed me how to get out on the ledge I'm on so that I could sit and get some great pics.

Yup.  Way scarier looking from the trail to the ledges.  They don't look quite as sturdy as they actually were from this angle.