“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency.” —Rebecca Solnit

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” —Aldo Leopold

“Love is not a state of sentiment; it is a labor of fierce and transformative care.” —Valarie Kaur

“In silence, some of us hear the rhythmic pattern of everything in motion.” —Wyatt B. Pringle, Jr

“You have to create space; you have to remove something; you have to break something down in your life, in order to bring in the new.” —Kathrin Zenkina

“It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.” —Mary Oliver.

“The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?” — Jack Kornfield

“Sometimes we get stuck in patterns or reoccurring themes in our lives that require a shocking epiphany to give us the opportunity to see new possibilities and notice the obstacles that keep us from moving on.” —Kat Lahr

Week 80 of 209 Weeks: “So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world.” —Mary Oliver, from “Mornings at Blackwater” Photo Notes: This photo was taken with Ilford SFX, a near-infrared film, at Vermilion-Soudan State Park in October 2025. This…

Week 79 of 209 Weeks: “I am not that air, I am the pattern that it assumed, temporarily.” —Ted Chiang, Exhalation Photo Notes: This photo was taken at Vermilion-Soudan State Park in October 2025.