February 13th, 2015 Aiako Harria yesterday, first time this year; overtaken by the beauty. It is at about this time along the hillsides and in the thickets that the brown of the end of winter starts mixing with the green of the beginning of spring. But an outing like this, though refreshing, can do nothing for the interior state of mind when one is tired and helpless; it only offers a slight reprieve, but we are back again, missing it: the sights, the sounds, the smell of the forest--somehow it only adds to the misfortune. It is difficult to wander along the thin trails because we have built up a reason and an inspiration for our coming; there is a goal, a new plant to find; something to be attained, a new path to take. All the expectation dies with each step, and yet it is still beautiful, still appealing, still the key to some secret meaning we have created for ourselves; and when we stop and look at it all, we realize we are merely the sum of our attainments, the sum that keeps
November 7th, 2013 Most often what we fear is not the future itself, but what must be left behind. But this is a strange thought because expectation arrives so quickly that it turns what is around us into a hindrance that cannot be let go of soon enough. But it is also a melancholic thought because if we do not leave, the joy of giving breath to something that was for so long taken away, shall lengthen into the despair of us never feeling the flow of life again. Douglas Thornton