"Note the trees because the dirt is temporary."

Chris recently gave me the best compliment I've ever received. "You're like a forest," he said, "full of beauty and knowledge." Although Kristina says it's true, she comes to me for shade and succor, as one retreats into the peaceful repose of the woods, I think they mean to say that I am like a tree in a forest--surrounded by all my relations, who are full of beauty and knowledge, and who help me to flourish in strength and longevity through the entanglement of our roots and our mutual striving toward the light--a striving that causes us, in our turn, to shine bright, each of us a sun. Chris and Kristina are two among many such trees in my immediate forest. Who am I to be so fortunate as this? To survive by loving my work? To thrive by the love of all my relations? This blog is an archive of the knowledge and beauty emitted by such trees of life as I have the pleasure of experiencing. Through the acts of remembering, saving, and sharing, I mean to signify my gratitude and to bear witness to my experience: trees all around me produce knowledge and beauty; they flow into the atmosphere like the sweetest, most evolutionary exhalation. Yes, I must admit, I am religious. I have unscientific faith in the transformative power of love, and I believe that to inspire a striving toward understanding is the most valuable use of my precious human life.