"It is not a thing, Eden, but a pattern of relationships, made visible in conversation. To live in Eden is to live in the midst of good relations, of just relations scrupulously attended to, imaginatively maintained through time. Altogether we call this beauty."

"We cannot save things. Things pass away. We can only attend to
relationships, to the relationships between things. It is here that we
see the most beautiful images we are capable of apprehending or
imagining – the relationship between a mother and a child, the racket
of sunlight on pooling water, a bird alighting on a limb."

"We need, each according to his or her gifts and by his or her own lights, to be the servants of beauty."

~ Barry Lopez, excerpts from his closing remarks after having experienced a World Café at the Quest for Global Healing conference in Ubud, Bali. Full text here.