In the Odyssey by Homer the hero Odysseus was caught having to make a choice between the two unpalatable alternatives. One choice he would lose several men to a multi-headed demigod who was able to grab several of the men off of his ship and devour them. Scylla was consistent in that she took from all he sought passage by her but if moving quickly would only take a few of the crew. Charybdis however was a whirlpool that would swallow the whole ship and only disgorge them remnants three times a day. This is the epic story's method of explaining the problem between the ghastly and the fatal.
The choices that I face today are not yet on that magnitude but they are having the elements stirred about in such a way as to begin to offer that choice.
I have somewhat naively been sailing this sea with the waters buffeting me uncomfortably and have not recognized where I am in relation to the horizon and the tides. Everyone has an agenda and that has been the tides that I have not noticed, not all the agendas are as sanguine as one would hope and I need to recognize the horizon that I am looking at.
All of the agendas have a self-interest aspect to them and need to be examined. Which of those agendas coincide most closely with mine are the watchful helmsman's duty to the craft he is sailing.
Another story in the Odyssey relates to when Circe was helping the men of the Odyssey prepare for the journey back to Ithaca one of the men had climbed upon the roof and when the call came for him to leave walked off of that roof to his death. Unawareness with a brutal result.
Caution is a powerful watchword and I shall have to exercise a great deal of it in order to return home safely .
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