Take: reach for and hold, with body and mind.

Care: a state of mind and an action of the body that seeks the health, welfare, and protection of someone or something. I may care for an idea and experience as much as for something I can touch.

If I take care only of myself I feel unsatisfied, hollow, empty. The beauty of taking care outside of myself is that I feel, far more. Whatever strength and resilience I have is born through the caring of others.

Whatever I experience, I do so from within. Reflecting on another's different point of view helps me better understand my own. At times I feel saddened, frustrated, or weakened by a different view, perhaps as this is so often the source of conflict. If I sense difference, even for a moment, it might set me apart, dislocate, threaten, divide. And yet, my view is only broadened by reflecting on another's.

I find I love most with others who are open to and welcome difference, for how else can love grow?

I live in a quiet place and have the good fortune of hearing small things move: the air through the dry crisp leaves of autumn, the untroubled ruffle of a bird's wing, the sporadic drops of mist to earth. I become aware of a moment, stretching, precious, long before my breath falls and rises for the next.

Music cannot exist without its travel from one moment to another, and yet as I play I loose all track of time. Perhaps this is why I love to share within its fluent arms with such intensity.