The way of virtue. Marcus Aurelius 6.17

Marcus Aurelius notices here the difference between the natural world, where material elements move regularly in rhythms we still call cycles (cf. the water cycle), and the smaller human world, where our personal virtue must choose a path only we can find, reading signs meaningful to us that relate our agency to occult powers close by (the gods). No amount of change in the climate, or natural world, will make it possible for all of us to choose the same death. Even if we all come to our death in the same moment, by the same material catastrophe, our souls will encounter it differently, with genius that remains unique to each individual.

Ἄνω, κάτω, κύκλῳ φοραὶ τῶν στοιχείων, ἡ δὲ τῆς ἀρετῆς κίνησις ἐν οὐδεμιᾷ τούτων, ἀλλὰ θειότερόν τι καὶ ὁδῷ δυσεπινοήτῳ προιοῦσα εὐοδεῖ.

Natural cycles carry the elements up and down, ever in circles, but the movement of virtue is nowhere on this track. It makes headway by divine inspiration, on a path very hard for our minds to grasp.