It took getting away from my wildcat family, a clan of iconoclastic survivors, to learn that no matter how well one person may be doing, we are ultimately only as successful as the whole.  My first introduction to this concept happened in conversation and I can still clearly recall the wide-eyed look on my friend, Kate Kelly’s face as I expressed the family philosophy of superior strength and will, according to them, as the only ways to get by in this world.  But Kate knew better, and in her typical non-confontational grace, her few words on the subject changed the tides of my thinking.

This exchange took place in the ’70’s.  Kate’s been gone twenty years, and in spite of her short life, her wisdom lives in me and others who knew her,  She can be identified in the inner and outer beauty of her two daughters, one of whom I traveled with to Greece, and recently, Bali.  I still think of her when I ponder consciousness.  Whether a short life or long, rebellious or refined, our thoughts and intentions are a drop of water contributing to a troubled or vital sea.