Our life has not been an ascent

up one side of a mountain and down the other.

We did not reach a peak,

only to decline and die.

We have been as drops of water,

born in the ocean and sprinkled on the earth

in a gentle rain.

We became a spring,

and then a stream,

and finally a river flowing deeper and stronger,

nourishing all it touches

as it near its home once again.

from The Sage’s Tao to Ching

by William Martin