Greetings,

In this changing season–when trees and weather begin to move towards winter–it is not uncommon to see children running through, and reveling in, the pure luxury of fallen autumn leaves. Recently, I saw a young child very purposely bend down, pick up a deeply colored leaf, and for a few quiet moments, stare at it as if she and the leaf were somehow speaking to each other. Watching her, I was reminded of what Matsuo Bashō, the renowned 17th Century Japanese poet, wrote:

"Your poetry issues of its own accord when you and the object have become one – when you have plunged deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there."

 
While I wasn’t able to listen to the thoughts between this child and her leaf, I was confident that, through her innate ability to play and imagine, she was fusing her interior world with the world that was the leaf. She was, perhaps unbeknown to herself, discovering another way of experiencing the very life of things–as she and they interact, come alive, and create yet another dimension of thought and feeling.