Today’s quotation—and what we’ll offer for the next three days—is from “World as Lover, World as Self”, by Joanna Macy. It’s called, The Three Beings. We’ll post one of each of the three beings over the next three days:
We call first on the beings of the past: Be with us now, all you who have gone before. You, our ancestors and teachers, who walked and loved and faithfully tended this Earth, be present to us now so that we may carry on the legacy you bequeathed us. Aloud and silently in our hearts we say your names and see your faces. . .
~ Joanna Macy
Bryce Canyon National Park, UT – photo by encrier, bigstockphoto.com
We seldom notice how each day is a holy placeWhere the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragmentsInto an eternal continuity that keeps us.
Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.
So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.
~ John O’Donohue
Monument Valley Morning – photo by fullempty, bigstockphoto.com
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
~Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Lotus – photo by Ange DiBenedetto
I want to feel both the beauty and the pain of the age we are living in. I want to survive my life without becoming numb. I want to speak and comprehend words of wounding without having these words become the landscape where I dwell. I want to possess a light touch that can elevate darkness to the realm of stars.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Sunrise, Poland – photo by Milosz_G, bigstockphoto.com
[Per Christopher Bache} …in certain profound states of inner work, the therapeutic effect of the healing process extends beyond the psyche of the individual to aspects of various collective levels of consciousness in which the individual is embedded…
…just as working through painful personal memories can bring therapeutic release for the individual, Bache argues that so might conscious engagement of collective trauma (by an individual in a very expanded state of consciousness) bring healing to the species mind.
~ David Nicol
Victoria Amazonica, Amazon Rainforest, Peru – photo by jkraft5, bigstockphoto.com
When a person projects a heart-coherent field filled with caring, love and attention, living organisms respond to the information in the field by becoming more responsive, open, affectionate, animated, and closely connected.
~ Stephen Buhner
Waterfalls, Plitvice Lakes, Croatia – photo by AdventureTraveler, bigstockphoto.com
And so it is this, we might say, that defines a shaman; the ability to readily slip out of the collective perceptual boundaries that define his or her culture—boundaries held in place by social customs, taboos, and especially the common language—in order to directly engage, and negotiate with, the multiple nonhuman sensibilities that animate the local earth.
~ David Abram
Full Moon Over Yosemite – photo by RodPhotography, bigstockphoto.com
Indigenous teachings embrace the divine feminine in a way that is crucial for healing the earth and ourselves. For thousands of years it has been known that everything that exists in this world is alive and has a spirit.
We are connected to a web of life that reflects the impact of the behavior of all that is alive. We can speak to the spirit of the trees, plants, rocks, rivers, animals, birds, insects, and reptiles and perceive their divine nature. As everything that exists is alive, each being also recognizes the divine in us. The earth is alive and is a sacred being. It is time for us to align with the heartbeat of the earth.
~ Sandra Ingerman
Zion National Park – photo by Dudarev Mikhail, bigstockphoto.com
What does it mean to say that nature is personal? In the broadest sense, it means choosing a different paradigm from the Western idea of nature as machine…It means holding the possibility that all things on Earth, even rocks and mountains, have their own will and intention.
~ Ursula LeGuin
Sella Mountains, Dolomites, Italy – photo by World Image, bigstockphoto.com
This is the most important dimension of blessing: sincerity that comes from the heart. This is the power that transforms and heals, elevates and restores. It is the very antipode of a stereotyped ritual. Spontaneous blessing is a flowing fountain that, like a mountain stream, cascades and sings. It expresses perpetual morning—defined as freshness, openness, gratitude, inspiration, newness, alertness, expectation of good, wakefulness, fresh beginning, purity, threshold, (re) birth, joy, innocence, wonder.
~ Pierre Pradervand, “The Gentle Art of Blessing”
Sunrise, Caswell Bay, Wales – photo by Leighton R, bigstockphoto.com
On its own, a tree cannot establish a consistent local climate. It is at the mercy of wind and weather. But together, many trees create an ecosystem that moderates extremes of heat and cold, stores a great deal of water, and generates a great deal of humidity. And, in this protected environment, trees can live to be very old.
~ Peter Wohlleben
The universe is the supreme manifestation of the sacred. This notion is fundamental to establishing a cosmos, an intelligible manner of understanding the universe or even any part of the universe… We must remember that it is not only the human world that is held securely in this sacred enfoldment but the entire planet. We need this security, this presence throughout our lives. The sacred is that which evokes the depths of wonder.
~Thomas Berry
One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day.
~ Albert Einstein
Diversity is the nature of evolution. Evolution has worked for billions of years to create biodiversity, cultural diversity, religious diversity, linguistic diversity and truth diversity. But now, in our mistaken view of the world, we are turning this diversity, which we should be celebrating, into divisions. And now we see each other as separate. When you create divisions you have a conflict. Conflict leads to wars, poverty and injustice. If we wish to reduce, or hopefully remove altogether, the possibilities of conflict, wars, poverty, exploitation, then we have to rise above these divisions which we have created in the world and celebrate our diversity.
~ Satish Kumar
Arches National Park, UT – photo by reisegraf.ch, bigstockphoto.com
In a real sense all life is inter-related. All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality.
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Wentworth Falls, Blue Mountains, Australia – photo by Greg Brave, bigstockphoto.com
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