Afternoon meditation sits on the edge of life and death. Layer upon layer unfold before me as I hear and see and feel power beyond imagining. Waves crash against rocks, sweep sand and castle and footprint and crab, then deposit new treasures on this shore.

It is our shore, Asilomar State Beach in California that draws us the living–human, dog, gull, and fly–to greet the dead–rock, sand, shell, seaweed. But none of it is dead. Slowly but continually transformation changes everything. There is no choice. Only this moment to breathe … in awe.