Story is the umbilical cord that connects us to the past, present, and future. Family. Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. . . . Story is an affirmation of our ties to one another.

I wonder how it is we have come to this place in our society where art and nature are spoke in terms of what is optional, the pastime and concern of the elite?

There is an art to writing, and it is not always disclosure. The act itself can be beautiful, revelatory, and private.

Creativity ignited a spark. In that moment, I saw that art is not peripheral, beauty is not optional, but a strategy for survival.

Tortoise steps, slow steps, four steps like a tank with a tail dragging in the sand. Tortoise steps, land based, land locked, dusty like the desert tortoise herself, fenced in, a prisoner on her own reservation -- teaching us the slow art of revolutionary patience.