You inquisitively know this and have experienced this already. If you have forgotten it as an adult, the child within you knows it. Do you remember how the world seemed brighter then, the stars more brilliant, the grass a deeper hue of green? You can re-ignite the experience of those childhood days by fully immersing yourself in nature. Who knows what you have the capability of becoming when you are filled with the elixir of nature? One summer, I was standing on a high ridge overlooking four rounded hills and a small valley below intermingled with open grasslands and trees. The air was filled with a subtle saltiness from the Pacific Ocean just twenty miles West. Suddenly, my eye was caught by a glimmer of silver. Two hundred feet above me was an osprey, carrying a newly-caught fish in its talons. The silver flashes were the reflection of the sun on fish scales; the light struck my eye with gleaming radiance.

The fish was still alive. It swung its tail back and forth in a swimming motion. Its gallant head was held straight forward, its eyes staring into the great innocence of the sky For an instant, I felt pity for that fish, an apparently unwitting victim in that drama. But the osprey did not carry the fish off in a straight line to its nest (to the tree on the hillside to the West) but instead flew in spiral formations of expanding and higher circles. It gave that fish a majestic ride: over the green and gold hillsides, over a doe and her two spotted fawns silently shy beneath a moss-covered oak, over a long-eared hare standing up on jumpy hind legs, over an amazed woman (me) and her golden-haired dog. In a moment my perception shifted to encompass the grandeur of that act: I saw that fish like the osprey's holy grail; a sacred vessel, carefully raised.

Just go outside and lie in the grass looking up at the trees and the sky. Take the time to walk beyond the path, over to the flowers, to see if they are fragrant. Look deep inside their petals to see the subtle shadings of color. Do not fool yourself that these acts are not as important, in fact more so, than spending tedious long hours working.

You are a different person if you are filled with the warm rays of the sun, the clarity of the blue sky, the freedom of a soaring hawk. Let these things grow inside of you and from this your soul will be richer and fuller than it will ever be from a thousand promotions and titles.