Recently, a colleague shared with me a poem by Stanely Kunitz called “The Layers.” There is one line in it that stuck out to me, it says, “Live in the layers, not on the litter.”  As I have been thinking about this line over the last few days I found myself having visions of mountains that have been blasted apart to create highways and the layers of rock which are visible in the walls surrounding me as I drive. The layers are a legacy of the history of that rock.

I remember a friend telling me about having a similar experience while in the grand canyon. Each layer tells a story about a different point in time in the development of this piece of nature. I have thought about trees and how there are layers that become visible when looking at a felled tree. Each layer is an important part in the life and history of the tree. Each layer tells a story about what happened during that time, what happened to that part of nature and what was done to it. The same is true for us.