I was driving along in a companionable silence with a niece of mine when she was about six. She turned to me suddenly with a beatific smile on her face and announced cryptically that words were wonderful things because they contained information about many worlds and how the different worlds touch. When pressed for an explanation, she said that a tree had to do with the world of the sky — the sun, rain and wind. It also had to do with the earth and the worms. Everything was connected. Little Alexa had stumbled upon the concept of interdependence.
— Joan Borysenko, A Woman's Book of Life