Find Your Still Center Amid Change

They found him in the temple, bent over a game of knucklebones with children. There was white dust on the floor. The afternoon heat was pressing the air. The men from Ephesus stood at a distance, waiting for the “dark” philosopher to rise, to speak, to join their talk of laws and power.

He did not rise.

He turned back to the boys and kept playing, leaving the men to their talk. They mocked him for playing. He looked up and said it was better to do this than to meddle in their politics. Then he turned back to the boys and the rattle of stones.

Heraclitus saw change everywhere. In rivers that never repeat, in fires that feed on what they consume. And, at the same time, he pointed to an underlying measure. A law that stays. “On those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow,” he said.