Sitting cross-legged on top of the hot tub cover, my hands in my lap, left hand in the cup of my right, a wool blanket draped over my shoulders, I opened my eyes after my meditation and reacquainted them with the intricate other-than-darkness. I looked at a fir, standing tall and skinny. At first I just saw it and glanced away, but then I looked back and felt the tree. I reached deeper into it and felt the connection that one living being feels with another. Imagined what it was like for the tree to grow, storms it weathered as a sapling. And still growing, but too slow for me to see. Everything around me, trees mostly, but even the mountains—all seeming to be still, appearing as an unmoving picture, but really growing and living. Slow-living like this is unusual for a human like me used to living fast.