 States were running Genesis backwards, were de-creating. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead stated, the universe is a creative advance into novelty. Create, de-create, recreate. I believe the part of the profundity of the float experience is that it creates a cauldron of creativity. In terms of perception, to paraphrase a philosopher, we exist in a flowing this-ness from which we posit moments. These moments are not isolated. They are more like notes in a piece of music, where meaning comes from relationality. A question would be, is there a pure moment? If so, could that moment be a vital potential? The moment of creativity, and therefore of hope. When we gather in celebration of the vital potential of the float, we create a symphony of awareness, of relation. From the heartfelt science, the mindful breath, the useful, often profound practices, the moving stories, the innovations, the overt creativity, we celebrate not just the float, we celebrate hope. Roshi Joan Halifax stated in relation to meditation, which I think also refers to floatation. She talks about the dissolution of the earth element as form unbinds into feeling. It has been theorized that feelings are high-order manifestations of bodily generated emotions, that feelings are the wellspring of sentience, of being, and that they permeate our consciousness. It has been said that the deepest feelings, the deepest biological function of feelings is that they guide our behavior in times of uncertainty. Are we not somehow immersed in a period, possibly an era, of uncertainty? The upwelling of feelings in the float, the often deep reveal that occurs, helps guide us. If feelings are fundamental to consciousness, then in the float, are we not accessing an essential aspect of the self? That the float supports and enhances the creation and manifestation of feelings, which we see so artfully in the images of Dillon Kahn. If so, could there be a more humanizing experience than the float? We float in an organismic zen, an intero-intuitive state. We resonate more deeply with what lies within how our minds and our gut are intertwined, how our perceptions and our thoughts play. Is not this state kind of an alternative milieu of neither being nor non-being, which signifies a side of the coming? In this in-between liminal state, do we experience what's called the hypnagogic? In neuro phenomenology, they state that the world is more what I live than what I think. And meaning is the bodily attunement in the world where we are intertwined with the basic stuff or flesh of the world. When we engage in deep practices like flotation, the inner environment gives its message to the receiving flesh. This is the deep text. We experience that deep text in the float. Philosopher and neuro phenomenologist Evan Thompson says the two key features of the hypnagogic are a slackening of the sense of self and a spellbound identification of consciousness with what it spontaneously imagines. Rather than being distracted, attention is fascinated. It loses itself in the image, in the imagining, and imagination may be the most important asset we possess. Have we not all originated in the dark saltwater chaos, depth itself? In theology and creation myths, the primal chaos which proceeds and gives rise to the generative tensions between order and disorder, form and formlessness. In the float, do we not symbolically return to that state? This is the great embrace. And is it any wonder how powerfully hugs manifest in this population? In the float, in the dark, in the silence, being immersed mutes the stridentcy of the dominant discourse, allowing an inner, possibly wiser voice to manifest. More attuned to what is called the Unus Mundus, a deeper state of being. There has been much talk about the concept of center or finding center. In the float, don't we often re-evaluate the center, the symbolic, bodily, nature-imbued center as opposed to the center as prescribed and enforced by a culture which dominates, defines, and demands? Certainly, we must meet some of those demands to dwell therein. But we of the float are explorers, purveyors, articulators of a renewed center which can redefine the periphery, redefine our reality. I have always thought that many of the people in this community could be called peripheral personalities, or peripheral people, obviously able to negotiate the center, but dwelling on the edge, the periphery, the intellectually creative wetlands, where, if you will, is the most second state where life in its great diversity thrives best. The poet states, we must pull the nails from our frame of reference. And in this, the float excels. Is this the center which science strives for? It is the center in which our spirit can manifest, however you want to define that term. Science and spirit, a dichotomy which is really and essentially the dual aspect of an engaged life. Again, in this dual aspect, the recognition of this dual aspect, the float excels. Simplistically speaking, there are those who believe and theorize that consciousness is a neurocognitive self phenomenon. Personal which expands to the social in this society. Others who believe it to be transpersonal, possibly cosmic. The luminous. Despite this, the clinical, the psychological, the philosophical, the poetic, the spiritual, the therapeutic often revolves around a reformatting, a renewal, maybe even a rebirth, where we begin to sense that we are not separate. We are deeply intertwined with the other, even if that other be different aspects of the self. In the float, we may begin to experience a relational account of the self. Begin to understand that perception is not wholly the achievement of a mind and a body, but also the whole organism in its movement in the world. It is this movement which brings us together, interconnected, open-ended. This conference is essential in that it brings your disparate brilliances together. To listen, to hear, to learn, to create, to enhance, to hug. This is a very, very vital community. Your work, your lives are essential. And as we've heard here in the last two days, becoming more and more essential. So, float on. And thank you.