Enklavene

An enclosure. Our skin encloses us physically. Inside our skin, our cells enclose DNA, mitochondria, cytoplasm and more.

Simultaneously, we are enclosed. In the worlds around us—our families, cultures and colleagues. The past and future too—we create and co-create relationships. Those are influential on our thinking-patterns, wellness and vitality.

We need some keys to all of this. Keys that help us hold the connections more tangibly and usefully. Being able to stand, loving and breathing in an expanse, is one such key—the picture above.

Click it to view the photo sized to your screen and pause.

Try pausing right before and right after undertaking a new action, even something simple like putting a key in a lock to open a door. Such pauses take a brief moment, yet they have the effect of decompressing time and centering you.
BR. David Steindl-Rast

An enclosure, from in-clavis, has at first glance contradictory meanings. Clavis can be a key. It can be a boundary (such as a membrane restaining the contents of our cells).

It’s a polarity, the two pieces—a key and a restraint—can be mutually incompatible or more than the sum of the individual parts (a lock is not much use without a key).

Monthly enklavene is a photo that can be a key to holding diversity so that more may emerge from divergent pieces.

New year’s Enklavene is on the Western edge of Europe, looking out on an overcast day. A small fire, some months ago, burnt here. On coming upon it smoldering the Australian in me made sure it was out, scraping the edges so it would extinguish.

This heart emerged from the heat of the fire, the wind, ground peat, rock and moisture.

Photos and videos by Festina Lentívaldi, (be) Benevolution. Reuse: Creative Commons BY-NC 3.0 US.