Human consensus does not generate reality. Were it able to do so, the Sun would have taken to orbiting the Earth some time ago.

The concept of an independent "spiritual realm" does not augment, for me, the magic of the mystical dimension, whereas to think of this dimension as emergent from our minds makes it all the more wondrous to be a human.

The Big Bang, the formation of sars and planets, the origin and evolution of life on this planet, the advent of human consciousness and the resultant evolution of cultures - this is the story, the one story, that has the potential to unite us, because it happens to be true.

The biochemistry and biophysics are the notes required for life; they conspire, collectively, to generate the real unit of life, the organism. The intermediate level, the chords and tempos, has to do with how the biochemistry and biophysics are organized, arranged, played out in space and time to produce a creature who grows and divides and is.

The most reliable joy is to be out of doors, to be a creature among other creatures. I find it very restful.

Early humans, bursting with questions about Nature but with limited understanding of its dynamics, explained things in terms of supernatural persons and person-animals who delivered the droughts and floods and plagues. . . .

Reverence is the sense that there is something larger than the self, larger even than the human, to which one accords respect and awe and assent.