learning from the rings of saturn

a couple weeks ago i was exploring boundaries with a coaching client and stumbled into some lessons from the rings of saturn. figured i’d drop a few of those here for fun.

1. one excellent thing about having rings is the clarity (from afar at least) of what’s inside and what’s outside. it’s really quite obvious when you look at a photo of saturn what and where the boundary is and what’s on each side of it.

2. the rings are made of mostly water, in the from of ice. in case the visual clarity wasn’t enough, the actual materiality of the boundary communicates another level of clarity: if you’re inside, all good. if you’re outside, also all good. if you’re on one side of the boundary and trying to get across it, good luck.

3. a surprising thing about the rings is that, from a human perspective, they are HUGE. from earth, the rings look quite solid. from within them, there is SO much spaciousness. they cover a surprising amount of space and there’s a lot of space between each of the chunks of ice and rock. for me, the lessons: (a) even the most intense boundaries have some spaciousness up close. boundaries aren’t walls; they are porous and that porousness can be both a benefit and a risk.

4. they’re beautiful. who said boundaries have to be ugly or offensive?

definitely more i could say here, especially about #3 but i’ll leave it here for now. thanks, saturn!

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