Despair shows us the limit of our imagination. Imaginations shared create collaboration, collaboration creates community, and community inspires social change.

Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. After the listening you become accountable for the sacred knowledge that has been shared.

We're human, this is our world, and I think we learn that that which is most personal is most general. And so, in a sense, we disappear into this larger world.

To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters. Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.

It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas - whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers, and bureaucrats - and admit we are lovers, engaged in an erotics of place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place - there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true. That is why we are here. That is why we do what we do. There is nothing intellectual about it. We love the land. It is a primal affair.

The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.

We find our voice, we lose our voice, we retrieve it, honor it, and hopefully, learn how to share it with others and stand in the center of our power. Translation is a theme. Fear and courage are a theme.