In memory of Terry Darling, L.C. — thank you for the keys

Thank you, Creator, for my life and all experiences. I am grateful too for any beneficent results that may come from it for others.

I dedicate this book to Planet Earth. May we know, love, and abide by your natural laws as we mature in our interstellar experience, affirming our rightful place in the one song known as Universe.

To Astarte, goddess of beauty and love with a little war on the side, thank you for your example of how to integrate these seemingly opposite models.

To Henna, Indigo, Cassia, and Amla, thank you for your gifts of healing and color and for our relationship.

Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

It is not a mouth thirsting
nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

It is not the image you would see
nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark,
nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.

People of Orphalese,
beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Khalil Gibran, from The Prophet