The universe is a more amazing puzzle than ever, as you glance along this bewildering series of animated forms — the hazy butterflies, the carved shells, the birds, beasts, fishes, insects, snakes, the upheaving principle of life everywhere incipient, in the very rock aping organized forms. Not a form so grotesque, so savage, nor so beautiful but is an expression of some property inherent in man the observer, an occult relation between the very scorpions and man. I feel the centipede in me, cayman, carp, eagle and fox. I am moved by strange sympathies.
The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity, — all find room to consist in the small creature. So do we put our life into every act… The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point… Thus is the universe alive.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
when I’m lost, I pause…
inquiry for today~ when do you pause?
We each come into being
because a few have paused
to fan the flicker
they saw in us.
I’m thinking of Grandma
Minnie who came from Kiev
before the Wright Brothers
bounced off the ground.
She told me my hands are
how my soul
enters the world.
And Joel who escaped the
Holocaust, who told me
to honor my gift.
And Helen who made
me promise to always work
in small circles, for that is
where the soul shows up.
And Parker who is still alive,
a comet of integrity that
helps me find my own.
Who forms your constellation
by which you find your way?
Can you be such a star for
those traipsing through the
dark we know so well?
~Mark Nepo
Make Believe Boutique 
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep …