If even rock was interesting, if even this ugliness was worth whole shelves at the library, required sophisticated tools to study, and inspired grown men to crack mountains and saw crystals--then what wasn't?

I alternate between thinking of the planet as home - dear and familiar stone hearth and garden - and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners.

We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.

Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.

Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves.

Cruelty is a mystery, and a waste of pain.

We are here to witness the creation and to abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house.