There is a group of activist monks somewhere who work with the poor. And a rule of their order is that they must have time for prayer and meditation in this pattern: An hour a day, a day a week, a weekend a month and a week a year. I haven’t quite hit that mark yet, but I am back from a week rambling through upstate New York. First a few days in the Adirondacks, then a couple in rural Chenango County (near the Finger Lakes), polished off by two days near Oneonta, New York for a family wedding. With all that running around there was still plenty of time to just sit reading, writing and staring. So restorative! The only way I know of to hear that still small voice through the mind-chatter every brain churns out. My regular daily meditation practice still needs work—when I’m on my everyday schedule, it’s tough to eke out more than a few minutes morning and night. Yet the more I do, the more I want to do, because I feel deeply, deeply fed and what didn’t make sense begins to. And I am reminded who I really am in the eyes of the universe, beyond all the trials and tribulations of  my  worldly life.