During the last few weeks of October, I hiked often to the place on Hawk Ridge overlooking Lake Superior where I had taken students in our Women and Spirituality classes to dive deep into our spiritual connections with nature. We would encircle the large spruce to ground and connect, and occasionally given a blessing by an eagle soaring overhead. The students would then disperse throughout the ridge, taking time in solitude for their own personal encounters with nature. As we reassembled, each would share their discoveries, and then one by one, they would share their favorite passages from the readings for the day. Always we would come to the point in our time together when I would invoke these words from Carol P. Christ: “There are no hierarchies among beings on earth. We are different from the swallows who fly in spring, from the many-faceted stones on the beach, from the redwood tree in the forest. We may have more capacity to shape our lives than other beings, but you and I will never fly with the grace of a swallow, live as long as a redwood tree, nor endure the endless tossing of the sea like a stone. Each being has its own intrinsic beauty and value….” (Weaving, 321). How can one listen to these words and not be changed?