Between a river and a road, amongst woods cleared and grown and cleared and grown again, our place explains us:

A circumstance is the view we have of a particular place at a particular time, literally "the circle holding our perspective." 

In that circle a moment is paused. The moment becomes mirror. We see ourselves in it.

For this moment we are factual, along with every other creature, plant, breeze, rock, and innumerable things we will never be able to name. A circumstance is incidentally and entirely inclusive. We are all as we are, right now.

Moving within a circumstance, we confront and interpret the immediate and essential. We seek out and notice our interactions with woods, waters, meadows, cropland. These become the way we define our world and ourselves. They are how we learn, become curious, encounter challenges, affirm obligations, imagine opportunity. A menu is a journal entry about these interactions. 

Just as we determine one understanding, circumstances change. We work-in-progress, we translate that which will never stop speaking. While we try to keep up, a door opens in the old circle, boundaries begin to disintegrate. When we look up, we find ourselves among new guests welcomed in and we are ready to make a new offering of place, share in a new circumstance. 

A circumstance is an offering of place.