The glassblower knows: while in the heat of beginning, any shape is possible. Once hardened, the only way to change is to break.

To journey without being changed, is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and to be transformed by the journeying is to be a pilgrim.

When we don't get what we want, there's a legitimate grieving, and then the spiritual journey truly begins, because not getting what we want breaks our self-reference; and once that is broken, we are aware that we are a part of a larger whole. It changes everything.

Wakefulness is not a destination but a song the human heart keeps singing, the way birds keep singing at the first sign of light.

Just opening quietly for moments everyday can create a path by which life can reach us, the way rain carves a little stream in the earth by which the smallest flowers are watered.

Whatever difficulty you face, there are time-tried ways you can listen your way through. Because listening is the doorway to everything that matters. It enlivens the heart the way breathing enlivens the lungs. We listen to awaken our heart. We do this to stay vital and alive.

Everything in life opens and closes, sheds and renews. We are no different. Listening in its endless forms is the way we stay open, the way we stay in relationship, the way we refresh who we are and what we're doing here.