Feeling squinty, I lifted my head to let my eyes rest on the soft greens and browns of the forest again. The tender light on the glistening surfaces made it feel like a fairyland. As my mind wandered around all of the living beings hidden in that scene, the phrase “turtles all the way down” popped into my head.

Here in this forest, the sequence isn’t all turtles. It’s spruce trees and raindrops and fungi and ladybugs and mites and weird friends and all the senses we have to perceive them. Throughout the entire universe, it’s relationships and connections all the way down.