this suppression can take an enormous toll as we get older.

what happened to those magic eyes that saw poetry in ordinary things?

Our longing for community and purpose is so powerful that it can drive us into joining established groups, systems of belief, or even employments and relationships that, to our diminished or divided self, give the impression of belonging to something greater. But these places often have their own motives and hidden contracts. They grant us

hough we may think of belonging as a static place of attainment, it is actually dynamic.

What affected me most about this book was the devotion the pilgrim had, not only in his quest for communion with that ‘something greater’ he called God, but his trust in life itself to support and carry him on that quest. There is something very powerful about intentionally giving ourselves over to the trust that magic will happen: and so it does.

the Dream School started as a humble series of talks in the local library and small circles of lovely misfits, but looking back on it almost two decades later, I recognize it as the pivotal chapter when I, the heroine of my own story, answered my vocation.

Don’t just give your gifts to people. Give relevance to the invisible by leaving offerings at rivers, or sewing prayer flags for the forest. Build cairns on mountain tops, plant wildflowers in parking lots, and live your life as it were an endless offering of beauty. Any small crumb of thanks we give to the holies makes them come alive with

which belongs with you. Soul is not a thing, but a perspective. It’s the slow courtship of an event that turns it into a meaningful experience. It’s the practice of trusting that if we sit silently and long enough with the absence of magic, the miraculous will reveal itself. Nothing is sacred until we make it so with the eloquence of our attention,

In my clumsy attempts to create a village from scratch, I would invite friends over for potluck gatherings, preparing days in advance by cleaning and making my home festive, cooking and sending out poetic invitations. And people would come, hungry for what gathering gives, but they would often show up empty-handed or bring convenience items like