Our use of everyday language should be mysterious, but familiarity hides the feeling of mystery. This book is a brief meditation on that mysterious activity. Building language outward from descriptions of the present moment, the meditation moves through our talk about space and time, to the realm of everyday thinking and science. But language enriches us further—through communities of meaning (morality, art, mysticism) to transcendence (the universe, God, and self). This meditation repeatedly cycles us from familiarity to wonder—about community, about consciousness, and ultimately about life itself.