What would it be like to live by moons…or times of blooming, fruiting, migrations? What would it be like to know only what your eyes can see, fingers touch, the tongue to taste? To be prey and see oneself as another of the animals, a part of the garden? Was the Old Testament’s parable of Adam and Eve about that break? The tree of knowledge being a departure from an ecological mind?
Susan Feathers 
Susan this poem highlighted our conversation about about loosing touch with nature. I was reminded of children in child care and after-school programs that are not allowed to be out of the sight of the caregiver. Necessary when you are caring for another’s child, but oh, the loss of the freedom to explore.
In Praise of Hands
by Stuart Kestenbaum
It’s not just the people
who live in the city
who’ve lost the thread
that ties them to the woven
world of stones and earth,
fields alive with pollen and wings.
Who among us understands
how oceans rise and fall,
currents swirling around the planet
with messages in bottles
floating on the water.
When the tide is out
we can go to the shore
dig clay with our bare hands
and make something beautiful from it,
a vessel with thin walls
that holds a canyon.
In both hands, like an offering,
we can hold the memory
of eroded stones and earth,
eons contained in this empty bowl.
We can fill it with water
that reflects the sky that has
witnessed everything since
time began, we can drink and be blessed,
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