Certainly one is brought to the brink of one's sense of who one is, what one has to do, why me, why now, why in this time in history? I am really driven, believe it or not, am awakened by a sense of being in this powerful axis, this turning point in human history.

Pathos activates the eyes and ears to see and hear. At times of pathos, illness opens doors to a reality which is closed to a healthy point of view.

The tendrils of a new, deeper form of spirituality are growing. It's the greening under the surface crust of consciousness and social paradigm.

There is something else that is trying to come through - that lure of becoming - and it does come from the realm of spirit, it does come from the quantum universe, it does come from the great spark that is the threshold of time and history trying to emerge and electrify us.

I find that all over the world, not only is there an acceleration of just about everything, but that many of the old patterns are deconstructing. New ones are arising. It's tremendously exciting, challenging, and also sometimes, well, scary.

Bangladesh is a world of metaphor, of high and low theater, of great poetry and music. You talk to a rice farmer and you find a poet. You get to know a sweeper of the streets and you find a remarkable singer.

The illuminated ones can take any form -- a man, a woman, a child, an elder, or even a dog. It is not inconsequential that the English language allows for the dyslexia of the spelling of the word dog: God spelled backward.