Earth has secrets to reveal, but you have to know how to read
the signs. The language of nature doesn't fit into human text.
It uses countless varieties of texture to express the subtle,
shifting dialect of the land, water, sun and wind. Wisps of fog
and thunderheads describe the journey of the wind. A shimmering
palette of colors relate witty repartee between water,
surrounding hills, plants and light. The grain of tree bark
narrates decades of encounters with storms and heat, insects and
animals. The miracle of Earth's language is that each being can
only understand what is being said through a one-to-one
relationship. Nature doesn't make universal pronouncements. That
would be too simple-minded and disconnected from the immediate
needs of billions of humans, trillions of birds, mammals,
snakes, lizards, flies, trees, grasses and flowers. Instead,
Earth's language—the gurgling of a brook, the arc of a branch,
or the redness of a berry—simultaneously says what is relevant
to the bird, bug or bear that is eng