Home is where we have a history.

I can only tell where I feel most at home, which is in the erosional landscape of the red rock desert of southern Utah, where the Colorado River cuts through sandstone and the geologic history of the Earth is exposed: our home in Castle Valley.

Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, there may be no such thing -- faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.

When Emily Dickinson writes, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul,” she reminds us, as the birds do, of the liberation and pragmatism of belief.

I can tell that the Greater Yellowstone from the Tetons, to the Lamar Valley where wolves howl and grizzlies roam, acts as my spine, my range of memory that ties me to landscape of Other. And that the ocean from the rocky coast of Maine, to the Florida everglades, to the looming cliffs at Big Sur, sustain me, remind me we are nothing without salt water, wind, and waves.

We are wearing coats of trust. When one tells a story this is what happens.

I can tell that in Refuge the question that was burning in me was, how do we find refuge in change? Everything around me that was familiar had been turned inside out with my mother's diagnosis of ovarian cancer and with the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge being flooded.