Four hundred year old trees, who draw aliveness from the earth like smoke from the heart of God, we come, not knowing you will hush our little want to be big; we come, not knowing that all the work is so much busyness of mind; all the worry, so much busyness of heart. As the sun warms anything near, being warms everything still and the great still things that outlast us make us crack like leaves of laurel releasing a fragrance that has always been.

Repetition is not failure. Ask the waves, ask the leaves, ask the wind.

A love astounds us or a pain consumes us and we forget that we glow on our own.

We are broken open, or we willfully shed.

We think that accomplishing things will complete us, when it is experiencing life that will.

The journey is made easier when we can accept that the process of living is designed for what matters to come through us tenderly.

Walk long enough and we all trade places.