The Winter Solstice is the time of ending and beginning, a powerful time -- a time to contemplate your immortality. A time to forgive, to be forgiven, and to make a fresh start. A time to awaken.

In your thoughts, you need to be selective. Thoughts are powerful vehicles of attention. Only think positive thoughts about yourself and your endeavors, and think well of the endeavors of others.

Part of what we seek in Buddhism is the sense of quiet observation. We don't get so involved in a state of mind that we forget that it's just another transient state of mind, no matter how much ecstasy or agony is involved.

Lao Tsu found Taoism easy to reconcile withthe world of human beings, which is interesting because with all the nature imagery, one might think it was in some way antithetical to contempory life.

If we are in a high enough state of consciousness we see that life is only a passing dream.

The sensual world cannot be avoided. We're in it at every moment. We are part of it.

Nature soothes us. Nature heals us, and something more, the woods are a place of power. Any woods that are still surviving on this planet, those are powerful areas to have kept themselves free from the encroachment of the industrial societies of our earth.