Quotes from Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Even time breaks down within this calculus of interbeing. We stand in a spiral—rather than a strictly linear—continuity with our ancestors and the ancient cosmos. We still see the light of the stars that died long ago and that now form our living bodies; so, too, do our actions reach into the future of all life and death. It matters what we bring forth with the matter of our bodies. We create, as cosmos-formed creatures, within creation.

Hope is 'that virtue by which we take responsibility for the future.' Not just responsibility for our individual futures but also for that of the world.

As we work to know the life that surrounds us, we stand in a lineage of naturalists — past, present, and even future. We join the "cloud of witnesses" who refuse to let the more-than-human world pass unnoticed.

But I believed in the power of sacrament, in very much the way I do today—not as a Catholic but as a human open to the truth that something can be made sacred by the attention we grant it.

Perhaps the corollary would be just as good an opening for a tale; not "long ago, when animals could speak," but "Long ago, when people could listen.

When we allow ourselves greater freedom in space and place than has come to be the norm, we create our own pathways of meaning and knowledge upon the land where we dwell. Wandering freely, we garner landmarks, presences, ecological awareness, a sense of kithship. Our brains and our hearts alike gather this knowledge as we become intimate with the paths that speak to us most strongly. Our footsteps in the outer world create an inner, wilder cartography that whispers, This way, this way…

Dr. Ashley King, planetary scientist and stardust expert (an enviable job description), states: "It is totally 100 percent true: nearly all the elements in the human body were made in a star and many have come through several supernovas." Oxygen + carbon + hydrogen + nitrogen + calcium + phosphorous + potassium + sulfur + sodium + chlorine + magnesium = star-human. The stuff of the cosmos is woven into our bone branches and wanders in our blood rivers.

Wonder, as a quality of intellect, has fallen from favor.