“An elegant sufficiency, content,

  Retirement, rural quiet; friendship, books,

  Ease and alternate labor; useful life,

  Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.”

                 ~ James Thomson, 1748

        Lost in the New-England woods today, I happened upon myself coming the other direction, and noted that I looked tired, bedraggled, wounded.  I said to myself, this is not the way, man! Look to your mending and breathe the healing vapours of your native air! Follow me to the summit and I shall show you for what you shall live!

        So I followed myself to the summit of the mountain, and there found solace for all my past cares.  I looked to my healing, and breathed in pure life.  From my aerie I surveyed the valleys and rivers below me, and did not wail that I had not yet bathed in them, but exalted that I should see them all, in God’s time.

        Below me is good, solid earth. Above me is clear, open clear sky.  Everything else is a passing curiosity to be explored.  I am free to walk where I please, to say what I please, to think as I please, to serve as I please.

        Between life and I there is only love, and whatever adventures lay before us, there’s only to grip the sword and charge with full heart, free mind, and clean conscience.

        Then a bear showed up and I had to leave the mountain.  Quite a day, really.