Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.

Soul. The word rebounded to me, and I wondered, as I often had, what it was exactly. People talked about it all the time, but did anybody actually know? Sometimes I'd pictured it like a pilot light burning inside a person--a drop of fire from the invisible inferno people called God. Or a squashy substance, like a piece of clay or dental mold, which collected the sum of a person's experiences--a million indentations of happiness, desperation, fear, all the small piercings of beauty we've ever known.

the feminine journey is a story unfolding, and its epiphanies come through real things, through tangibles like walking sticks and dreams and deer antlers--all of which we might miss without taking time and space in Deep Being.

She didn't even know how dangerous the truth could be, all the tiny, shattering seeds it carried.

I realize what a strange in-between place I am in. The Young Woman inside has turned to go, but the Old Woman has not shown up.

I wanted to know what happened when two people felt it. Would it divide the hurt in two, make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone's joy seemed to double it?

This is the autumn of wonders, yet every day, every single day, I go back to that burned afternoon in August when T. Ray left. I go back to that one moment when I stood in the driveway with small rocks and clumps of dirt around my feet and looked back at the porch. And there they were. All these mothers. I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street. They are the moons shining over me.