Amongst the greatest joys I have ever known in the few precious decades I have had on this planet, at the top interleaved are these priceless few — finding beauty, experiencing the grandeur of nature, building relationships, discovering new layers of depth and complexity in the world, encountering the boundless will of the human spirit and generosity of others, immersive learning, adapting to intense strain, executing hard-earned skills, tasting exhilaration, savoring the fruit of seeds sown, successfully teaching, being of service to something or someone you believe in, and deep, meaningful connection with other sentient beings of every kind in all conceivable ways. Relationships and experience that bend time.

It feels to me the most essential of duties for us each to hold to as fellow humans, to show up for one another with continuous compassion and accountability in good faith, with a fierce resilience amidst life’s inevitable turbulence. Striving with unbending will to uncover light where there is darkness, and face the dark head-on. To fight to preserve this planet and the abundance of extraordinary life within it, and our humanity along the way. To reach for the greater good in the face of all cynicism and in the most bleak of circumstances, working at long length to alleviate suffering where it arises. To wrestle with paradox. And to learn along the way, that these things are most vital and consequential when they are hard.

We are all on some level searching for answers and insights into our own existence alongside the world around us, with beauty and tragedy coexisting at all scales in every moment. We are all forever unable to fully absorb all of the information and experience continuously available to humankind, and how we endeavor to try matters profoundly. And we are all standing on the shoulders of giants, forever in debt to those who have endured and succeeded before us.

Every so often, with labor upon labor and unending work to glimpse insight, when I get something right, it feels I may have found something true, and beautiful. It is among my highest hopes herein to shed light on such momentary phenomena, and transcend through the hardest lessons I’ve ever learned in the process of trying — always amidst trials and tribulations in the arena that we humans call life. And amongst such hopes, in those rarest of moments, to encounter and encapsulate what feels like magic.