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.

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

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.

Words are how we think; stories are how we link.

Millions of people are joined in the knowledge that writing brings insight and calm in the same way that prayer, meditation, or a long walk in the woods does. They have discovered that writing allows the racing mind to move at the pace of pen and paper or the pace of typing on the waiting screen - that journal writing is a spiritual practice.

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.