Yawns are not the only infectious things out there besides germs. Giggles can spread from person to person. So can blushing. But maybe the most powerful infectious thing is the act of speaking the truth.

The master of the garden is the one who waters it, trims the branches, plants the seeds, and pulls the weeds. If you merely stroll through the garden, you are but an acolyte.

In the plains the grass grows tall, since there is no one to cut it. There is no one to water it either.

Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind. Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things. Their language has been lost. But not the gestures.

I was forgetting that an artist also just stares at a piece of paper or canvas all day. It somehow never occurred to me to connect these two diverse creative modes.

Clad in metaphor, the world becomes newborn to our senses, like a phoenix. It is the most effective fresh presentation of the elements of our life for our jaded, numbed, even ailing sense of imagination.

Thus, true long-term change is brought about not by destructive passion of the moment but by well-reasoned constructive action. Violent shock of Armageddon that leaves nothing in its wake but a blank slate is not a solution, only a postponement of progress.