When things seem hopeless - as they often do now - it is time more than ever to embrace hope, embrace the risk it entails, and gather its energy to drive us forward into the unknown.

The drops fell rhythmically, metronomically, glassy orbs of exquisite beauty slipping into an icy abyss. I was transfixed, hypnotized by the simplicity, the sublimity, the entrancing meditation and profound power of it all, knowing these drops began as vapor carried from distant lands, fell as snow, melted, and would follow me and my companions some 1,600 miles to the Bay of Bengal, there to be heated, evaporated, condensed, and fall once more on yet another far away place.