He came upon steps somebody had carved into the rock down the steep side of a young and unstable mountain.  He took the first step and immediately braced himself.  He felt himself standing on world’s edge, about to plunge into an abyss.  It was clear to him that the sensation on the second step down would be still more intense, and that by the fourth he’d feel himself no longer tethered to reality.  It was not his day, he told himself, not the day to step over a line from which he may not be able to return.  Still, regardless, a person had carved these steps down this steepness.  From their timeworn condition, perhaps even a thousand years ago.  How had the carver managed the carving?  He thought to take the second step down, in the carver’s honor, but had later to remind himself that, with the keen focus it then took to climb back up the step he had come down, he had appreciated the work of a god/dess among people from a respectful distance instead.