all human. We all want to feel safe, to feel we belong, especially in the vulnerabilities at the beginning of our spiritual paths. In the service of this, it is helpful to see ourselves reflected in the teachings, reflected in the teachers who share them, and reflected in the spiritual community surrounding us.

that we are afloat in a great sea of being, an endless flow of becoming in which we are connected to all beings. The great journey of transformation begins with the acknowledgment that we need to make it. It is not something we are undertaking for amusement, nor even for the sake of convention; rather, it is a spiritual necessity.

As essential as breathing, these stories have layers of usefulness that are part self-regulatory, part transmission of wisdom, and part connective tissue to a networked intelligence unconstrained by time and space.

My own sense, Krista, is that there is something deeply built into us that needs story itself. Story is such a source of nurture that we cannot become really true human beings for ourselves and for each other without story—and without finding ways in which to tell it, to share it, to create it, to encourage younger people to create their own story.