“My mind, this floating glove, or lily or whatever I called it, wants to drift off into some obscure pool, and be shaded by weeds. I don’t want to talk or laugh or make engagements…”

Many places have a "forest that shouldn't be entered." Even people who are used to working in the mountains feel there is something there. They are suddenly overcome with fear and it becomes the custom to avoid certain places. These places exist. I don't know what is there, but I think they are real . . . The world is more than we can fathom with our five senses. The world doesn't exist just for humans. So I think it is all right to have such things. This is why I think it's a mistake to think about nature from the idea of efficiency, that forests should be preserved because they are essential for human beings . . . I am concerned, because for me the deep forest is connected in some way to the darkness deep in my heart. I feel that if it is erased, then the darkness inside my heart would also disappear, and my existence would grow shallow.

It's raining—raining... and I've been walking, walking. The road was 3 foot in water, and this meant a 3 mile round; but oh dear, how I love this savage medieval water moved, all floating tree trunks and flocks of birds and a man in an old punt, and myself so eliminated of human feature you might take me for a stake walking.

“Maybe it was the smell of ripe tomatoes, or the oriole singing, or that certain slant of light on a yellow afternoon and the beans hanging thick around me. It just came to me in a wash of happiness that made me laugh out loud, startling the chickadees who were picking at the sunflowers, raining black and white hulls on the ground. I knew it with a certainty as warm and clear as the September sunshine. The land loves us back. She loves us with beans and tomatoes, with roasting ears and blackberries and birdsongs. By a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons. She provides for us and teaches us to provide for ourselves. That’s what good mothers do.”

“[Simone Weil’s term “decreation” was never exactly defined or spelled, but here is how she describes its aim]: “To undo the creature in us.””