Our soul knows we are designed for a bigger, more sensuous, and more imaginative life. But we can go for days, weeks, months, a lifetime with only marginal encounters with beauty and the wild, only rarely sharing an intimate moment with a friend. We collude in the numbing as well, slipping into the void through alcohol, drugs, shopping, television, and work, anything to help us ward off the feelings of emptiness that come crashing at our door.