I’m excited to share these excerpts from my new book, Things That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Living, just published by Sounds True. These reflections are drawn from over fifty years of journaling. They are field notes on living, insights found in my lifelong conversation with the Universe. Quieting the Thieves Today I am sad, or so I thought. But more I am tired of keeping up with all that doesn’t matter. I’m sipping coffee, listening to rain. I like watching the leaves hang in long weather. I like to close my eyes and feel the rain quiet the earth. I welcome that quieting. I like to have my habits of going here and there interrupted. I was caught in the rain when coming here. The cool blotches sink in all over. The many lists I carry in my shirt are wet. I take them out to dry and all the tasks have blurred. At last. Unreadable. Forgettable. We carry these lists near our heart and finger them like worry beads. It doesn’t matter what is on them. They are the thieves and it is the insidious virtue to have everything in order before we live that is the greatest thief. I feel the rain drip …