Why Does This Matter?

Reflection: The Ladder and the Palm Yesterday, a photograph stopped me. An old wooden ladder leaned gently against a palm tree in Jamaica. No one climbing. No visible task. No urgency. Just… there. It brought back another image I kept in my New York office years ago— a yellow ladder floating in a wide blue sky from the Santa Fe Opera. Two ladders. Both unclaimed by purpose. And something in me softened. Because I know this other ladder too— the one we climb without questioning: achievement, recognition, progress, getting somewhere. The one that quietly turns presence into performance. In yoga, we’re given a simple invitation: nowhere to go, nothing to do. I’ve said those words countless times guiding others. But lately, I’m feeling them differently. Not as instruction— but as orientation. What if the ladder is still here… but we’re not required to climb it? What if it can simply lean— part of the landscape, not a demand? In a world of constant becoming, there is something quietly radical about remembering: to be here right here right now.