The reason I spend thousands of lifetime hours creating something 99 percent of which no one else is likely to ever read is that writing itself is the gift.

In the midst of overwhelming noise and distraction, the voice of story is calling us to remember our true selves.

Story is the mother of us all, for we become who we say we are.

We cannot think without language, we cannot process experience without story.

Curiosity restores is a state of heightened awareness. Culturally, this has been considered a child's activity. By the time we're grown, we're supposed to know enough not to get bogged down in life's miraculous detail. But the spiritual journey reactivates our sense of miracle and invites us to pause again, squatting over the sidewalk cracks, to ponder the lives of ants and stars.

Ritual is the way you carry the presence of the sacred. Ritual is the spark that must not go out.

Contact with the sacred occurs in the stillness of the heart and mind. If there is any real destination to the spiritual quest, it is this point of silence, the middle of the spiral, the center of the self. ... The only map that does the spiritual traveler any good is one that leads to the center.