The Loop

Once again I am returning to the fascinating Pine Hills Nature Preserve in Shades State Park, walking the loop trail there.

I have done this several times, at different seasons, and both the fact that I keep repeating this hike and that it itself is a loop (returning to its beginning) makes be wonder about the purpose of this.

Return and repeat: Aren’t these early signs of failure? Wouldn’t it be better to give up and move on?
After being exposed to Iceland’s permeating Black, Green, and White last summer, I was surprised to find the same monochromaticity here, in late summer.

Green is a difficult color, and doesn’t pair well with a single other color I think, but it does exceedingly well in combination with black and white.

When we return, we are different, and view things differently, and possibly even the completion of a loop teaches us something new. That what makes us repeat is maybe the feeling that there is unfinished business, that the circle has been left open, in the way the ensō brush stroke is often left open.

So the loop, as a pattern, is nothing but a sophisticated mechanism to move on.