Everyone casts a shadow. Everyone has a relationship with the fearful unknown.

A real conversation always contains an invitation. You are inviting another person to reveal herself or himself to you, to tell you who they are or what they want.

I love the best of all the traditions. My discipline is the take-no-prisoners language of good poetry, but a language that actually frees us from prejudice, no matter what religion or political persuasion they are. I try to create a river-like discourse. The river is not political, it's not on your side or against you. It's an invitation into the onward flow.

Anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand.

Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for a while. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way. We articulate the truth of a situation by carrying the whole experience in the voice and allowing the process to blossom of its own accord. Out of the cross-grain of experience appears a voice that not only sums up the process we have gone through, but allows the soul to recognize in its timbre, the color, texture, and complicated entanglements of being alive.

The marvelous thing about a good question is that it shapes our identity as much by the asking as it does by the answering.