Had I opted for the instant gratification of a photograph, the phone would hold an image but would I have spent time noticing how the gills inside morphed from charcoal grey to salmon to ecru? Would I have left any space for wondering how this moment fit into before and after? Or would this little wonder have flitted in and out of memory in a careless heartbeat?

What remains is gratitude and the sensation of being carried, pulled by tendrils of presence, love, and laughter toward the heart of the world.

The genius of this land, what draws us, is the deep grace of welcome and forgiveness and mercy that pervades it, the sense of being cradled in the wide lap of something or someone much older and more vast and loving than we can imagine. In that embrace even the loneliest sojourner can find solace and the will to reach out for their unique thread with which to re-weave the world.