I will graduate with muddy feet,

Polished boots though these may be.

You were so happy in bare feet, and when you asked to run my heart ached for you. What child need ever ask such a thing? We were in open fields and soft grass. Here you should always run barefooted! You will learn when to be careful, what that means. You will make mistakes, in this way you will learn—or if you never run, then maybe not. Then you may remain afraid and uncertain; as I was, as I still often am.

I am of you also, your mother’s father was mine as well; blood of my blood, I have been there. This is the mundane truth of reincarnation: that those who do not deal with themselves are doomed to reproduce also this lower self. The task for each is to escape this cycle; that is, to confront oneself, to protect one’s child from such shadows—and I see in my sister where she has not, and I pray of myself that I will.