Integrity is remembering that as individuals we are indivisible from the whole process in which we are participating — the integral evolution of life and consciousness. Integrity is about embracing the paradox that while most of us live our lives in a state of consciousness that separates subject and objects, self and world, even humanity and nature, there is a deeper ground of being and becoming — a quantum-entangled, implicate order of fundamental interconnectedness and co-creative reciprocity. We are individual nodes of consciousness.
~Daniel Christian Wahl
Sunset, Bali, Indonesia – photo by Dudarev Mikhail, bigstockphoto.com
The way we see the world affects the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity—then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.
~ David Suzuki
Sequoias – photo by PapaBear, bigstockphoto.com
Modern peoples…have mainly forgotten that we live in relationship as brothers and sisters with all the beings and forces of the natural world. Our scientific redefinitions of the “unseen” as the “unreal” have caused us to forget that we are all luminous strands in a giant web of belonging.
~ don Oscar Miro-Quesada
Merced River, Yosemite National Park in Autumn – photo by haveseen, bigstockphoto.com
With a cosmology of a living universe, a shining miracle exists everywhere. There are no empty places in the world. Everywhere there is life, both visible and invisible. All of reality is infused with a vital presence and this creates a profound relatedness among all things.
~ Duane Elgin
Aspen Trees, San Juan National Forest, Colorado – photo by bommarito, bigstockphoto.com
Compassion is a most powerful and intelligent frequency within the love spectrum. As we unconditionally express compassion, it intuitively chooses its own way to administer its care–based on a sensitive attunement to the higher need of the whole. Pure compassion is not tethered to our agendas; it’s free to weave its magic, sometimes visibly yet often unseen, but never wasted as it nurtures all within its radiance. True compassion supports the highest-best outcome, which is not always what our personality would choose or understand.
~ Doc Childre
Sunrise, Huangshan Mountains, China – photo by AlSereb, bigstockphoto.com
I think that responsible living in the biosphere means learning to see other species as beings like us, in that they have intentions, make decisions, and they know what they’re doing. They have points of view.
I think that responsible living in the biosphere means learning to take the interests of other species into consideration and allowing them room to live. And I think it means learning to relate to them and to think through the kinship we have with them…
~ Jeremy Narby
Victoria Crowned Pigeon – photo by wrangel, bigstockphoto.com
If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear, people who can open to the web of life that called us into being, and who can rest in the vitality of that larger body.
~ Joanna Macy
Autumn Morning Sunlight, German Alps – photo by Leonid Tit, bigstockphoto.com
In the parched deserts of postmodernity a blessing can be like the discovery of a fresh well. It would be lovely if we could rediscover our power to bless one another. I believe each of us can bless.
When a blessing is invoked, it changes the atmosphere. Some of the plenitude flows into our hearts from the invisible neighborhood of loving kindness.
In the light and reverence of blessing, a person or situation becomes illuminated in a completely new way. In a dead wall a new window opens, in dense darkness a path starts to glimmer, and into a broken heart healing falls like morning dew.
It is ironic that so often we continue to live like paupers though our inheritance of spirit is so vast. The quiet eternal that dwells in our souls is silent and subtle; in the activity of blessing it emerges to embrace and nurture us.
Let us begin to learn how to bless one another. Whenever you give a blessing, a blessing returns to enfold you.
~ John O’Donohue
Mesa Arch Sunrise – photo by twildlife, bigstockphoto.com
Since a living presence is felt to be in and through everything, all things are seen and experienced as related. Because everything is connected through the Great Spirit, everything deserves to be treated with respect.
~ Duane Elgin
Autumn Color – photo by Ian 2010, bigstockphoto.com
We envision a world in which people, inspired by nature, create and maintain healthy and abundant livelihoods that enhance fertility and biodiversity on the planet. We envision humans as a positive, healing presence on Earth, creating more abundance on the planet than would be possible without them. Our mission is to serve as a catalyst for a revolution in the way humans relate to the natural world.
~ Penny Livingston
Natural Bridge. Queensland Rainforest, Australia – photo by zstockphotos, bigstockphotos.com
In our efforts to preserve life and diversity in an egocentric world, our mature anger—in addition to our love—can be one of our greatest resources. Mature anger is part of a healthy reaction to the actions of people in power that cause suffering, death, and extinction for so many individuals, species, and human traditions and languages. This includes anger at ourselves for our complicity, in either minor or major ways. Anger of this kind promotes clarity and motivates constructive and corrective action, as well as compassion for those who are suffering. Mature anger—entirely distinct from hatred—derives, as Tibetan Buddhists say, “straight from the heart of pure compassion.”
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Lotus – photo by Ange DiBenedetto
Plants and mushrooms have intelligence and they want us to take care of the environment. They want to communicate that to us in a way we can understand.
~ Paul Stamets
Mushrooms in Autumn Forest – photo by g215, bigstockphoto.com
The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.
~ Edward Abbey
Arenal National Park, Costa Rica – photo by JosephCG, bigstockphoto.com
According to John Perkins in his e-guide All My Relations, We are Each Other, “All my Relations” is a worldview shared by many indigenous cultures around the world, “particularly those of the North American continent,” that maintains “we are all family, bound to humanity as a whole as well as to the Earth, the plants and animals that share it with us, and to the stars and other heavenly bodies in the universe.” Although philosophical values differ from culture to culture, there is a common thread among many indigenous communities that the land is not owned—animals, rivers, oceans, and mountains are not an endless resource to be pillaged for personal gain. Instead, the Earth is seen as alive, and an entity to be in relationship with that does not exist outside the self.
~ Alexia Lassman
Red Deer Stag in Autumn – photo by Voy, bigstockphoto.com
Even though you and I are in different boats, you in your boat and we our canoe, we share the same river of life. What befalls me befalls you. And downstream, downstream in this river of life, our children will pay for our selfishness, for our greed, and for our lack of vision.
~ Oren Lyons
Autumn River – photo by jenyateua, bigstockphoto.com
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