Picture the evergreen in your living room as a map of your soul: the lower boughs hold your cherished memories, the middle branches the peace of the present, and the star your highest future. I teach chronesthesia, the brain's ability to travel to the past and the future.

Call up pine and cinnamon, or gratitude, and let it glow out from your heart. Stand in a snowy room with no ceiling beneath a hundred million stars. Follow a little star guide of gold, rose pink and wintry blue, and shrink into a spark of light. Touch the glass ornaments on the lower boughs and relive moments of joy. Rest inside the golden ornament of the present. Then walk into the heart of the blazing star and feel who you are becoming.

Under the full moon the bowls sounded so full they seemed to fold back into themselves, and they settled in D major, the key of so many carols.