Follow anything in its act of being — a snowflake falling, ice melting, a loved one waking — and we are ushered into the ongoing moment of the beginning, the quiet instant from which each breath starts. What makes this moment so crucial is that it continually releases the freshness of living. The key to finding this moment and all its freshness, again and again, is slowing down. When we find ourselves stalled in our very serious and ambitious plans, we are often being asked to re-find the beginning of time.
The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood that unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls all who dwell on earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.