Editorial June 2022
Dear Readers,
When writing SPIRIT over the course of the pandemic, I started to see how valuable experience interacting with the world is. Sometimes, I’m overwhelmed with how much there is to know in the world; people think in very different ways, and there is something to be learned to every one of them. Cities can teach a lot – and farms can, too. Dogs are great teachers; so are cats, cows, horses, chimpanzees, etc. The knowledge that stands to be gained here can come only from experience. I respect literature and the arts greatly because humanities can preserve knowledge. I recently visited the Museum of Fine Arts; some paintings expressed feeling or fact so keenly that one can feel or understand just what the artist did. There was a painting by Eugène Cicéri, a French artist, of the Forest of Fontainebleau. It’s a 
landscape painting of a traveler in a forest, of a sun-dappled patch of wood and a little man making his way among mossy boulders. It was painted in 1852. I’ve seen it in 2022, 170 years later, and still the quiet magic of the forest can be felt. Respect for nature, the painter’s keen eye for light – all is taught by this art. So, this June – I engage!
Love,
Editor Jaanu
