The Wild Wood

Whatever we do makes a difference," Eithnie said. "Doesn't matter how small our efforts might seem to us, it'll still make a difference." "But what about all the people who don't do anything, or who don't do anything positive? Won't their actions, or lack of actions, cancel out the good we're trying to do?" "I guess I'm thinking that it's also like dominoes. You know how when you knock one over, more and more fall, one after the other, until they all come down? (Edward) Lorenz's theory assures me that what I do Will make a difference, I can't tell how, I can't predict when or where, but it will effect a change. I just have to concentrate on maintaining that effort so that one day all the dominoes will come down in the right way.

Now gossip, by its very definition, is trivial; on the other hand, is there a better way to really understand something than by appreciating all of its various trivialities? We don't cherish our friends simply because they're great thinkers, or saintly, or for any such lofty concerns. Rather it's a combination of the all the small, trivial facets that combine to shape the image we carry of them; it's the complex final pattern with all its daily shifts and adjustments that we cherish. Why should nature be any different? Why should anything be any different?

We always see the ones we love wearing a dusting of magic.

When someone Saw into that world, of course it would be startling, even frightening, because what she saw then was a mirror reflecting back the mysterious reaches within her own hidden self. The more imaginative a person was, the more able to suspend her disbelief, the truer the image would seem. The more real. Especially since such moments must spring up out of one's subconscious; ...

You did this to us," Albin was saying, Eithnie managed to shake her head. No. It wasn't me. But she found it hard to argue. People were poisoning the water, the air. She'd always known that the forest she loved was slowly dying, if not in her lifetime, then in the next. Wildlife and their habitats were disappearing at an alarming rate, taking with them the spirits of the land as well.