in writing we live life twice: once in the experience, and again in recording and reflecting upon our experience.

Wonder and despair are two sides of a spinning coin. When you open yourself to one, you open yourself to the other. You discover a capacity for joy that wasn't in you before. Wonder is the promise of restoration: as deeply as you dive, so may you rise.

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.

My real journey had very little to do with traveling Europe, and a whole lot to do with traveling my own mind.

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

We need a revolution in the West: not violent overthrow, but a willingness to take responsibility for the course of history being set forth in our names. We need a revolution determined to activate broad, inclusive social change.

The spiritual journey is what the soul is up to while we attend to daily living.