Dana Stroschein

I spend a lot of my life looking down. In fact, I look down so much that every now and then I end up at the chiropractor because my neck has decided it has had enough.
Part of that is simply who I am. When I’m outside, I’m often looking for rocks. Sometimes I’m searching for mushrooms tucked beneath the leaves, wild strawberries hiding along a trail, or wild onions growing in a patch of sunlight. Looking down has led me to treasures I would have otherwise walked right past. It has taught me to notice details and appreciate the small things. But there is a downside. When my eyes are fixed on the ground, I can only see what is directly in front of me.
Life works the same way. Whenever I hit another bump in the road — which, if we’re being honest, is just life — I have a tendency to put my head down and focus on what’s directly in front of me. The problem. The worry. The thing that needs fixing. Before long, that’s all I can see.
The truth is everybody has bumps in the road. Some people show them. Some people hide them. Some people seem to navigate them with grace and wisdom. Others … well, not so much.
Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We’re all trying to find our way around fallen trees, unexpected detours, potholes, and washouts. Sometimes we handle them beautifully. Sometimes we make a mess of things. Usually, if I’m being honest, I do a little of both.
When I get stuck staring at the obstacle, it begins to fill my entire field of vision. The talons become all I can see. That’s usually when I need to do the opposite of what comes naturally. I need to lift my head. I need to look up. I need to stand tall and borrow the eagle’s perspective.
An eagle does not navigate the world from the forest floor. It rises above it. From high overhead, rivers that seem tangled find their course. Obstacles that appear enormous become part of a much larger landscape. What feels chaotic from the ground often reveals a pattern from the sky. I’ve been reminded of that lesson more than once.
One of those reminders came while wandering through one of my newfound rock-picking places — the kind of spot where you tell yourself you’re just going for a short walk, and two hours later you’re knee-deep in stones, convinced each one has something to say.
The lake was calm, the air soft, and I was there for all the right reasons: to slow down, breathe, and maybe reset after a long week. I had no intention of doing anything profound. I just wanted a few pretty rocks and a little peace.
It wasn’t the first stone I picked up that day — but it was the first one that stopped me. It was unusually shaped, curved in a way that didn’t quite make sense. Smooth in some places, sharp in others, streaked with colors that made it feel older than it probably was. Not my usual type, but something about it felt… important.
So, naturally, I put it in my bag. Because that’s what we do when something speaks to us and we don’t fully understand why.
A while later, I found another — completely different but curved in the same way. I turned it over in my hand and thought, this looks like a talon. Then I remembered the first one.
Two talons. Now, I’m not saying I immediately thought I was being handed some grand spiritual message — but I also didn’t not think that. So I kept them both. Above me, eagles were circling, an osprey cut across the sky, and I told myself this was exactly what I needed — a quiet moment, grounded, connected, grateful. Except my brain had other plans.
Instead of peace, I found myself thinking about everything else. Stress. Conversations I replay too often.
The general background noise of being human. I couldn’t seem to stay present, no matter how many birds flew overhead trying to inspire me. At some point, I reached into my bag to put something away, and my hand hit something sharp. I flinched, pulled back, and without thinking said, “Well, nope,” and tossed it.
Immediate reaction. No reflection. Just: that hurt, get rid of it. And then, almost instantly, I realized what I had done. I had just thrown away one of the talons. One of the stones that, not long before, had felt meaningful. Something I was drawn to. Something I thought might matter.
Gone — because it poked me. And here’s the part that caught me: it didn’t hurt me on purpose. It wasn’t malicious. It didn’t wake up that morning thinking, I’m going to ruin her day. It was just shaped that way.
Sharp in places. Beautiful in others. Entirely itself. So, there I was, crouched on the ground, scanning the shoreline like I had just dropped something priceless — which, in that moment, I guess I had. At first, I searched the way we all do when we panic: fast, frantic, unfocused.
Then I remembered the eagle I had been watching earlier — high above everything, not rushing, not scrambling. Just steady. Patient. Seeing clearly. And I thought, what would the eagle do? Probably not this. So, I stood up, took a few steps back, and slowed down. I widened my view instead of narrowing it. I let my eyes adjust, let my breathing settle.
And just like that—there it was. Actually, not even the exact stone I thought I had thrown. It was another one I had almost dismissed earlier. Close enough to make the point. Which, of course, made me laugh. Because if there’s anything consistent about life, it’s that the lesson rarely shows up exactly how we expect it to.
What landed for me in that moment was simple, and not particularly comfortable: Sometimes, the moment something hurts us — even a little — we throw it away. A person. A conversation. An opportunity. A part of ourselves. We don’t stop to ask whether the pain came from harm… or just from contact.
Not everything sharp is dangerous. Some things are just real. And real things tend to have edges. That doesn’t mean we tolerate what actually harms us. But it does mean we pause long enough to tell the difference. Because sometimes what we’re tossing aside isn’t something that needs to be removed—it’s something that needs to be understood.
So, I picked up the stone, a little more carefully this time, and put it back in my bag. Still sharp. Still beautiful. Still, mine to decide what to do with. I stood there for a moment, watching the sky again, a little quieter now. And I said a simple miigwech — thank you. For the beauty. For the lesson. And, of course, for the reminder to maybe not throw meaningful things across the beach the second they poke me. Things are not always what they seem.
As for today, I’m not quite ready to return to the noise. The woods are quiet, the river is moving at its own pace, and there is something comforting about being reminded that not everything needs to be solved this very minute.
So I’ll stay here a little longer. I’ll sit beneath the trees, listen to the birds, watch the clouds drift overhead, and simply be. After all, isn’t that what I’m asking my nervous system to do in the first place?
And then I might go fishing.
Not because fishing solves anything, but because sometimes the best thing we can do is stop wrestling with the questions long enough to remember we’re alive while we’re asking them.
And as I plow forward into my next learning experience, or life lesson, or whatever we choose to call it, may I — along with you — remember that there is a time to look down for the treasures at our feet, and a time to look up for the perspective we need to find our way forward.