Stumble

is a word that carries the bump of coming to earth deep within its very first, arresting vowel sound

A stumble is often seen as a mistake or an accident, but a stumble is, in effect, something that has always been waiting for us all along…

Photo: © David Whyte

STUMBLE

is a word that carries the bump of coming to earth deep within its very first, arresting  vowel sound, setting a brake to our forward motion and setting a limit to our sense of being forever well balanced, in control and always on our successful way. 

Stumble rightly carries the same echoing sound and the same echoing reminder as the word humble and the same import as its cousin, humility, which derives from humus, which is the substance to which we are returned, both when we stumble and when we are returned, in our final falling, to the very earth that gave us our foundation. To stumble is to return to the ground on which we were walking and which has brought us to the involuntary point in our lives where we need to return to it. Sometimes we stumble just to find that underlying ground again for reassurance, sometimes to be able to step off from that ground in a better and firmer way, sometimes just to get the earth beneath our finger nails again: or to feel the body as a body again, even if it is only through a bruise on our knees or the sharp, stinging reminder of a barked shin.