“I loved your provocative question [on wilder aliveness],

and was even coming across that as a teenager, when I was around 12, when my aunt started taking me to the opera…it was just incredible [after] living in a Canadian suburb where everybody was unexpressive. The passionate expression in the opera singers. And my sixth grade teacher was an opera singer. So I went: where does that live? How does one live a life like that? I didn't know I was begging the question. But

I certainly was making sure I didn't settle for anything less than that...”  & “…for sure there are people in situations 

that don't allow them to do things that they dream of. And here's a small passage from the book [The Geography of Belonging: A Love Story of Horses & Africa], where I say, ‘How do I know to do these things? I lie on the earth, and I hang out with horses. I listen with my heart and not my mind. And I follow the guidance I hear, no matter how far fetched it seems, or how trepidatious I feel.’ So I think 

it's being able having the luxury of moving forward despite the trepidation, and that here in the life that I live, there are no actual blocks to doing that, other than inside myself ... That’s what we're here for, to savor what's here… When my friend a few years ago was dying of cancer and chose to stay in her beautiful home and garden, she was savoring creation. We would walk in her garden, and she said ‘I'm going to miss these roses, let's just smell these roses. Look at that butterfly.’ ...That is my inspiration.”

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