I wonder what kind of environmental consciousness is to be developed in a family or a community where nature is seen as either an optional thing, not accessible to you, or something completely exotic, unwelcome.

Sometimes you have to whisper to be heard. Our culture is very much one of "bigging it up," always upping the noise level in order to produce a louder signal.

Bend words. Stretch them, squash them, mash them up, fold them. Turn them over or swing them upside down. Make up new words. Leave a place for the strange and downright impossible ones. Use ancient words. Hold on to the gangly, silly, slippy, truthful, dangerous, out-of-fashion ones.

One thing that stress does is make us ungenerous, so we constrict, we look after our own. We get solipsistic and go into our own narcissistic spiral. What this taught me is that there is a way of dealing with stress that is much more welcoming and open and hospitable to the world.

I wonder what kind of environmental consciousness is to be developed in a family or a community where nature is seen as either an optional thing, not accessible to you, or something completely exotic, unwelcome.

The one thing I'd thought of is that we spend most of our lives in survival time. There's a sense of hanging off the ledge, trying to tread water, trying to keep ahead of the deadlines or the business of the city.

I think I had a lot of small epiphanies along the way. What I really got out of the experience is a sense that there's other ways of living your life and that there are lots of things that we lose track of when we are stressed.