Here I am, safely returned over those peaks from a journey far more beautiful and strange than anything I had hoped for or imagined - how is it that this safe return brings such regret?

This world is painted on a wild dark metal

Figures dark beneath their loads pass down the far bank of the river, rendered immortal by the streak of sunset upon their shoulders

The concept of conservation is a far truer sign of civilization than that spoilation of a continent which we once confused with progress.

Simultaneously I am myself, the child I was, the old man I will be.

The mystical perception (which is only "mystical" if reality is limited to what can be measured by the intellect and senses) is remarkably consistent in all ages and all places. All phenomena are processes, connections, all is in flux...have the mind screens knocked away to see there is no real edge to anything, that in the endless interpenetration of the universe, a molecular flow, a cosmic energy shimmers in all stone and steel as well as flesh.

I ... had what Kierkegaard called 'the sickness of infinitude,' wandering from one path to another with no real recognition that I was embarked upon a search, and scarcely a clue as to what I might be after. I only knew that at the bottom of each breath there was a hollow place that needed to be filled.