We are taught not to trust our own experiences. Great Salt Lake teaches me experience is all we have.

I have a sequence to my creative life. In spring and fall, I am above ground and commit to community. In the summer, I'm outside. It is a time for family. And in the winter, I am underground. Home. This is when I do my work as a writer - in hibernation. I write with the bears.

What other species now require of us is our attention. Otherwise, we are entering a narrative of disappearing intelligences.

I was invited to give the Freshmen Convocation at Florida Gulf Coast University on October 24, 2004. My book The Open Space of Democracy had been selected as one of the "common readers" for the university's 1,050 entering freshmen. On October 6, William Merwin, the president of Florida Gulf Coast, made the decision to "postpone" the convocation. He cited negative statements I had made in print about President Bush. If our colleges and universities are no longer the champions and protectors of free speech, then no voice in this country is safe.

To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.

Most of all, differences of opinion are opportunities for learning.

Rituals are the formulas by which harmony is restored.