It's easy to forget that we are organic beings made of nature.

As you go about your daily life, do you feel your natural origins, Brian? as you put half a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee? Do you feel your connection to the earth?

As you shine your shoes three strokes up and two down, do you feel yourself to be part of a great

evolutionary sequence? I suspect not. There's an impulse to believe that because we built great cities, because we developed

incredible scientific marvels, because we wrought such destruction on the world, that we are in opposition to it. We are here to bend the

natural world to our will even if it opposes us at every turn, but this is a myopic view that denies our true position on the earth.

We are not the antithesis of nature.

We are its greatest achievement. You are its greatest achievement. Today I'm going to ask

you to spend some time pondering your place in the wider world, in the

universe, in time. Do not allow distractions to intrude on your solitude while you

listen to this cassette.

Listen to it alone.

Listen to it in a darkened room in an empty house.

Close your eyes.

Let your thoughts spin away

into the eternity that surrounds us at all times.

Think about a speck of dust floating alone

in an empty universe.

Take a breath and let the air sink into you

as you contemplate the dust.

How long do you think it existed? How long do you think it was the only thing that existed?

The dust seems to be unchanging, forever stalled, floating in its nothingness but this is an illusion.

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