If others could tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and perfection, they must tell you to make a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for every that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing . . .
There is nothing in me that is not of the earth, no split second of separateness, no particle that disunites me from the surroundings. The river runs through my veins, the winds glow in and out with my breath, the soil makes my flesh, the sun’s heat smolders inside me. A sickness or injury that befalls the earth befalls me. A fouled molecule that runs through the earth runs through me. Where the earth is cleansed and nourished, its purity infuses me. The life of the earth is my life. My eyes are the earth gazing at itself.