It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart.

The knowing, I told myself, is only a vapor of the mind, and yet it can wreck havok with one's sanity.

When I set a glass prism on a windowsill and allow the sun to flood through it, a spectrum of colors dances on the floor. What we call "white" is a rainbow of colored rays packed into a small space. The prism sets them free. Love is the white light of emotion.

Smell is the mute sense, the one without words.

We are defined by how we place our attention.

There is that unique moment when one confronts something new and astonishment begins.