We laugh together like we never have before. Her face radiates pure joy. She's a good little dancer, music in her blood...maybe a word from God. She's so happy and strong , despite her world crumbling around her, that I can only gaze in awe. She leaps into the air, giving shape to the music that reposes in all matter, just waiting to be released. She liberates the music and, in her innocence, cannot know what she has done and thereby is all the stronger. Is God speaking to this tired old heart? Is God saying, "Look — don't you get it? She's as marvelous as a galaxy. You have nothing to fear. If I can call her into being, there's nothing I can't do. Now dance. Dance!"
Walking home, I ponder about a love of art and I think about my love of the land back home, about the healing grace of wildness, and how difficult it is to articulate why conservation matters, why wilderness matters to the health of our souls and how a language of the heart becomes suspect. I wonder how it is we have come to this place where art and nature are spoken in terms of what is optional?