Here's a poem that I love. In fact, i've been hearing it from my father every birthday - not my birthdays - but on his birthdays. And I smile as i write this: my dad is still six, clever as clever. I'd like to adopt the poem as one that i'll start reciting on my birthdays to come...

So in "light" of my 1/4 century birthday:

Now We Are Six

Author: A.A. Milne

When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six
now and forever.

I appreciate those who can beautifully put to words, a 'more than words' expression.

"They sought salvation not in fact, but in feeling, in experience. Man is matter. That is fact. He is a collection of minerals. That is fact. Reduced to his elements though, the life went out of him. His calcium did not cry; his zinc did not love; his iron did not appreciate a good joke. Apart, something was missing, that spark of life, the electricity of the actual world, foreboding, non-sensical, haunting. Before and after the body, only ripeness, what some call spirit, the great mystery, remains alive in the grass, moving with the wind, swimming in all moving water."

I heard the other day that our human cells, the cells that comprise "us" (eyes, heart, hands, etc) are all replaced every 7 years. I also heard someone follow up with, "then, what makes us who we really are?"

it's quite beautiful when you think about it.

NPR: Volcano story