The Geometry of Ascent

We are all, in some measure, creatures of the spiral. We climb through the days, circling the same central axis of our own lives, hoping that each rotation lifts us a fraction higher than the last. There is a quiet, rhythmic labor in the climb—the way the light catches the edge of a step, the way the shadows pool in the corners of our history, waiting for us to pass. We often mistake the destination for the point of the journey, forgetting that the ascent itself is a conversation between the weight of our feet and the promise of the air above. To climb is to trust the structure, to believe that the iron and stone beneath us will hold while we reach for a wider horizon. It is a slow, deliberate shedding of the ground, a shedding of the heavy, tethered parts of the soul. If you were to stop halfway, suspended in that hollow throat of stone, would you look down at the path you have carved, or would you keep your eyes fixed on the sliver of sky waiting at the top?

Ruben Alexander has captured this feeling of rhythmic elevation in his work titled “Stairway to…”. It is a beautiful reminder that every climb is a search for a different kind of light. Does this path lead you to a place you recognize?