As a leaf on a tree

"The trees made the past seem within reach in a way nothing else could: here were living things that had been planted and tended by a living being who was gone, but the trees that had been alive in her lifetime were in ours and might be after we were gone. They changed the shape of time."

Rebecca Solnit, 'Orwell's Roses'

"This winter they are cutting down our woods more seriously than ever,~Fair Haven, Walden, Linnaea Borealis Wood, etc., etc. Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!"

Henry David Thoreau, 'The Journal of Henry David Thoreau'

"Why do I sleep outdoors? Because of the sound of the random dripping of rain off the maples or ash trees over the roof of the railway wagon, or the hopping of a bird on the wet felt of the roof, or the percussion of a twig against the steel stove-chimney. Out there, I hear the yawn of the wind in the trees along Cowpasture Lane."

Roger Deakin, 'Wildwood'

"Reality is often very different than it seems. The Earth appears to be flat but is in fact spherical. The sun seems to revolve in the sky when it is really we who are spinning. Neither is the structure of time what it seems to be: it is different from this uniform, universal flowing."

Carlo Rovelli, 'The Order of Time'

"Wondering happens in between person and situation and effectively relates the two. Indeed, wonder offers us a bridge towards a world that is wider than we initially knew or felt; as an experience, it radically expands our possibilities of acting and being."

Vlad P. Glaveanu, 'Wonder'

"And we might, in our lives, have many thresholds, many houses to walk out from and view the stars, or turn and go back to for warmth and company. But the real one - the actual house not of beams and nails but of existence itself - is all of earth, with no door, no address separate from oceans or stars, or from pleasure or wretchedness either, or hope, or weakness, or greed."

Mary Oliver 'Long Life: Essays and Other Writings'