The pyramid shape is said to hold many secrets and amazing properties. One of them is a sense of wonder.

When tough times come, it is particularly important to offset them with much gentle softness. Be a pillow.

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.

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.

Q: Why do I love thee, O Night? A: Because you know I will never answer.

Frost grows on the window glass, forming whorl patterns of lovely translucent geometry. Breathe on the glass, and you give frost more ammunition. Now it can build castles and cities and whole ice continents with your breath’s vapor. In a few blinks you can almost see the winter fairies moving in . . . But first, you hear the crackle of their wings.

I technically live in the desert - Los Angeles being an artificial oasis - but my interest stems even farther to my own ethnic roots and to my love of antiquity, of the Old World and of the east.