Peter, I can't let the year end without thanking you for this and all your other provocative, eloquent, and elegant thoughts for all our days. Thank you!

I am particularly moved when, as you did today, you write about nature -- its mystery, its magic, its power despite all our efforts to control it, and the precarious state of its treasures at the hands of human-unkind.

In the ever-sprawling metropolitan Washington, D.C. area where I live, it seems that folks won't be content until they have leveled every last patch of forest, paved every field, and turned every natural stream into a storm drain. These days, I get only a few species of birds at my backyard feeders. With the exception of the black-capped chickadees, which seem to be thriving, I see mostly English sparrows, starlings, and marauding flocks of pigeons. The woodpeckers, goldfinches, song sparrows, cardinals, bluejays, towhees, grosbeaks, and wrens are fewer and fewer with every passing year.

My wish for all of us as the new year turns is that we will be more aware of our small place in a world that includes much more than just the human species, and that we will have the shared commitment to do what it takes to heal and restore our troubled Earth.