The power of stories to find me when I need them never ceases to amaze me. This one sprang right out of the pages this morning at me and gave the beautiful gift of contemplation, sadness, and peace - all in not-to-many words, and with what feels like a gentle and knowing smile from Jane. Enjoy! -- Desirae Brakhage (Jane's granddaughter)

Lots of times I talk with him. Especially when he gets big and I can see the expression on his face. “Hi, Moon!” I say, so happy to see him always, “What’s up?”

And I focus quickly on his expression and he tells me what’s coming along in my life. It seems like he likes me particularly, or he wouldn’t show sympathy like that. The subtlety and diversity of his expression amazes me. He achieves it with rock. . . light . . . air (humidity, barometric pressure, pollutants) . . . and my psychological state.

Or is it me projected psychic knowledge on an inanimate object?

November I spent in the desert and I watched the phases, how he grew a little every day. Or shrunk. How he always rose a little later. Mostly he doesn’t speak. No need. But one night that November he blurted out at me, “I’m mortal too!” Then he whispered, “I will die someday!”

I understood. I wept. For him. For sorrowing at my death and the deaths of others he knew and loved across millennia as I have known and loved dogs, goats, birds, flowers. Each one gone now. “Your goat, Tree, thought you were immortal,” he said.

“Was she wrong? What is Truth?” I asked him.

“Which perspective would you like?” he asked. “Until now you thought I was immortal.”

We stared at each other tenderly.