How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the Earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clear and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and the man, all belong to the same family.
~ Chief Seattle
Monument Valley, AZ – photo by alisha, bigstockphoto.com
Practice One:
Ask for forgiveness as a representative of the human race—for all our harm to the Earth, its rapidly shrinking biodiversity and the cruelty and violence we do to each other. Act as a surrogate for the whole human race: this is a practice of representing universal responsibility.
Practice Two:
From the same whole humanity perspective affirm the flowering of the conscience and consciousness to heal Earth and all its peoples. Let your heart open as a representative of all hearts opening across the planet.
We are holograms of the whole: let us pray as such.
~ James O’Dea
Sunrise, Lake Bled, Slovinia – photo by CreativeNaturePhotography, bigstockphoto.com
Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.
~ Dr. Albert Schweitzer
Garden of the Gods, CO – photo by pilgrims49, bigstockphoto.com
What is real to me is the power of our awareness when we are focused on something beyond ourselves. It is a shaft of light shining in a dark corner. Our ability to shift our perceptions and seek creative alternatives to the conundrums of modernity is in direct proportion to our empathy. Can we imagine, witness, and ultimately feel the suffering of another?
~ Terry Tempest Williams, “Finding Beauty in A Broken World”
Sunrise, Huangshan, China – photo by AlSereb, bigstockphoto.com
You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer. In that kind of relationship you have enough love, strength and awakening in order to change your life.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Yosemite Valley – photo by lbryan, bigstockphoto.com
[Referring to the heartbeat of trees]…while trees sleep at night they routinely have beats pulsate throughout their body.
These pulses are the tree distributing water throughout its body, similar to the way a heart pumps blood through the body. This could change the way that we study and look at trees, as it had long been assumed that trees distribute water via osmosis. What an incredible find! The heart beats occur very slowly in between one another, with some of them taking hours to repeat. The phenomenon is slow and gentle that it cannot be seen with the naked human eye. Nature is amazing!
~ Brandon Prows
Tree and Sunlight, Kanchanaburi, Thailand – photo by Thiradech, bigstockphoto.com
It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.
~ Albert Einstein
Grand Canyon Sunrise – photo by maverick888, bigstockphoto.com
Our individual spiritual journey is part of the world’s journey. To deny this is to live inside the illusion of separation. A simple awareness of oneness unites us with all of life, with every stone, every insect, every dream almost lost before waking. We are life itself, breathing, suffering, rejoicing. We are the pain of the sick and the laughter of the child. We are neither better nor worse than any particle of creation. Our hunger for the Source, our search for the Divine, is life’s hunger, life’s search. We need to give our journeying back to life and acknowledge the oneness that unites everything. Nothing is separate. All is One.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Monument Valley Sunset – photo by cta88, bigstockphoto.com
Our challenge is to create a new language, even a new sense of what it is to be human. It is to transcend not only national limitations, but even our species isolation, to enter into the larger community of living species. This brings about a completely new sense of reality and value.
~ Thomas Berry
Snowy Owl in Flight – photo by photoguy66, bigstockphoto.com
Watching their cycles of growth, shedding of leaves, and re-flowering in the spring, people have long perceived trees as powerful symbols of life, death, and renewal. Since the beginning of time, humans have had a sense that trees are sentient beings just like us, that they can feel pain, that they bleed when they are hurt. Trees even look like us. People have a trunk; trees have arms. And so we innately feel a deep connection to them.
Many people say they can feel a tree’s vibrational energy when placing their hand upon its bark. With their deep roots, trees carry significant grounding energy. We naturally feel peace and serenity when walking in the shade of trees or on a forest trail.
~ Judith Shaw
Redwood Forest – photo by Virrage Images, bigstockphoto.com
…spirituality can give us an actual experience of the unity of all things. This experience, when nurtured as a constant practice, roots equality-consciousness, non-discrimination, non-violence and reverence for all people and the earth deep into our core.
~ Michael Edwards
Stokksnes Mountains, Vestrahorn Cape, Iceland – photo by Mr. Smith, bigstockphoto.com
The true human can tune to the voice of the river and give it expression. The true human can tune to the voice of the wind and speak the words that the wind cannot speak without human tongue. The true human can blend with the essences of the forest, the spirits of the rain, the spirits of every creeping, crawling, living thing and can represent them fairly and evoke from them the best that they can be.
~ Ken Carey, Return of the Bird Tribes
Coastal Sunset – photo by Adrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com
We breathe in oxygen given to us by the trees, drink water from lakes and springs, take in materials from trees and plants that grow in the earth, their leaves gathering energy from our local star, the sun. Every moment of our lives, whether we are aware of it or not, we live in unity and intimate connection with the creative wisdom of the natural world.
~ Christopher Chase, “Shifting Paradigms: Aligning with the Wisdom of Nature”
Summer morning – photo by Dzmitrock, bigstockphoto.com
All things in the universe are one. They began as one. They may end as one. They are all made of the same basic matter/energy, and they interact with one another, constantly.
All things on earth are one: plants, animals, rocks, oceans and atmosphere. All living creatures had a common origin, all depend on each other, and shape and are shaped by non-living things. Life has radically altered the earth’s atmosphere, and molded many aspects of its geology. The Gaia system is an organic evolving whole embracing the biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and atmosphere.
~ Paul Harrison
Horshoe Bend, Glen Canyon, AZ – photo by holbox, 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
Sunset, Broadpool, Swansea, South Wales, UK – photo by Leighton R, bigstockphoto.com
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