What if we expanded our sense of community to truly include all living beings? Included their perspectives, needs, and gifts? What would be the state of our environment then?
~ Susan Eirich
Hoodoos, Bryce Canyon National Park – photo by videowokart, bigstockphoto.com
There are also all the subtle realms. For some extraordinary reason, we as a culture have dismissed, forgotten rejected. And yet they belong to all of the different spiritual traditions—the shaman who works with the spirit world, the Tibetan Buddhist who works with deities, devas, and the land, or the Christian monk who prays to angels and icons of the saints, and even the Zen monk immersed in the Void in this realm
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Interview with David Nicole
Sunset, Callanish Stones, Lewis, Scotland – photo by stroop, 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
Sacred Tree People, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite – photo by cphoto, bigstockphoto.com
Bless our beautiful earth, our shared home…
Some Earth Day quotations:
We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.
~ Barbara Ward
The Earth is what we all have in common.
~ Wendell Berry
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
~ Margaret Mead
The environment is where we all meet; where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share.
~ Lady Bird Johnson
A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
As I walk with Beauty
As I walk, as I walk,
The universe is walking with me,
In beauty it walks before me,
In beauty it walks behind me,
In beauty it walks below me,
In beauty it walks above me,
Beauty is on every side.
~ Traditional Navajo Prayer
Earth Seen from Apollo 17 – Photo by NASA/Apollo 17 crew
After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy…
If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, Love is the one and only answer.
~ Albert Einstein
Chac Mool Cave, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico – photoi by oksanavg, bigstockphoto.com
According to Navajo tradition, a “sacred wind” blows through the universe and brings the capacity for awareness and communication with others. Our individual consciousness is simply a local part of this larger, animating wind or life force that moves through all of nature.
~ Duane Elgin
Grand Canyon Sunset – photo by Kris Wiktor, bigstockphoto.com
The Ecosattva Vows, by Joanna Macy
I vow myself to each of you:
To commit myself daily to the healing of our worldAnd the welfare of all beings.
To live on earth more lightly and less violentlyin the food, products, and energy I consume.
To draw strength and guidance from the living Earth,the ancestors, the future generations,and my brothers and sisters of all species.
To support others in our work for the worldand to ask for help when I need it.
To pursue a daily practicethat clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart,and supports me in observing these vows.
~ Joanna Macy, from Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy
Observation Point, Virgin River Valley, Zion National Park – photo by eblisgalea, bigstockphoto.com
There are theoretical descriptions showing how tasks can be accomplished by entangled groups without the members of the group communicating with each other in any conventional way…Some even propose that the entire universe is a single, self-entangled object.
~ Dean Radin
Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park – photo by neillang, bigstockphoto.com
Like the speaking stones celebrated by poets, herbs too have a voice of their own. Each one speaks within a community so vast and in a language so rich that, taken together, these natural miracle workers truly represent one of humanity’s greatest treasures.
~ Angelo Druda
Mossman Gorge, Queensland, Australia – photo by FiledIMAGE, bigstockphoto.com
In a healthy society, caring for the soul of the world is primarily the work of true elders. These are the community members who have the greatest capacity to recognize and comprehend the needs and desires of the world, and to respond wisely. They are the ones who can best guide us by virtue of their capacity to be guided by the world. By listening to the soul of the world, true elders acquire the wisdom, scope, and perspective to assess the relationship between humanity and the larger web of life we’re part of—and to guide us in keeping that relationship in balance.
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Grand Canyon – photo by Alice Pickler, bigstockphoto.com
Gratefulness…is an overall orientation to life. When we wake up in the morning and feel grateful just for the blessing of being alive, we open our heart and senses to the gifts and opportunities of another day, a day that was never guaranteed. This approach to gratitude is more radical since it isn’t contingent on a transaction—on something good happening to us—but is rather a way of living.
~ Kristi Nelson
Sunrise – photo by Roxana_ro, bigstockphoto.com
May the stars carry your sadness away,May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,May hope forever wipe away your tears,And, above all, may silence make you strong.
~ Chief Dan George
Kinlochleven, Scottish Highlands – photo by Alice D, bigstockphoto.com
New research suggests a belief in oneness has broad implications for psychological functioning and compassion for those who are outside of our immediate circle.
~ Scott Barry Kaufman
Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, Oregon – photo by Dan Schreiber, bigstockphoto.com
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
~ Black Elk
Sunset Over Zion National Park – photo by Nick Fox, bigstockphoto.com
What is greater than us is the earth itself—life—and we are folded into it, a small part of it, and we have work to do. We need a new animism, a new pantheism, a new way of telling the oldest of stories. We could do worse than to return to the notion of the planet as the mother that birthed us. Those old stories have plenty to say about the fate of people who don’t respect their mothers.
~ Paul Kingsnorth
Archipelago on the Baltic Sea Coast, Sweden – photo by RicoK, bigstockphoto.com
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