There's a Biblical story about Lot's wife that you likely know. She's supposed to be leaving the past behind, but looks back and is turned to stone, or a stone-like pillar of solidified salt. There is a way in which our inability to let go of the past hardens us in the present and makes any real dynamic movement into the future impossible. We're no longer limber and resilient or able to grow and adapt.
It's always been puzzling to me that we identify the Biblical character not by her proper name but by the phrase 'Lot's wife.' Her very identity is in her circumstances, in her external relations. And that's itself a warning. We are not ever just where we've been or what we've experienced, who we've known, or what we've done. There is a core identity that is intended to be open to the new, spiritually transformable by the alchemy at work in the world at all times and that we can use to form our souls anew as we move forward into our best possibilities. I suspect those guys on Easter Island were also too caught up in pondering the past, nostalgically looking back. And there they are, stuck in that past. Don't be like them. Focus forward. And go forth anew.
