We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Lake Obersee, Switzerland – photo by panaramka, bigstockphoto.com
A genuinely ecological approach does not work to attain a mentally envisioned future, but strives to enter, ever more deeply, into the sensorial present. It strives to become ever more awake to the other lives, the other forms of sentience and sensibility that surround us in the open field of the present moment.
~ David Abram
Mt. Field National Park, Tasmania – photo by Neale Cousland, bigstockphoto.com
Teachings, ancient as the people who have lived on a land for five millennia, speak of a set of relationships to all that is around, predicated on respect, recognition of the interdependency of all beings, an understanding of humans’ absolute need to be reverent and to manage our behavior, and an understanding that this relationship must be reaffirmed through lifeways and through acknowledgment of the sacred.
~ Winona LaDuke, “Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth”
Desert Landscape, Arizona – photo by BCFC, bigstockphoto.com
…when we place our emphasis and consciousness on the soul of the world, we’re embracing the world as something sacred, as something that has its own essence, its own purpose and destiny that might very well be different, bigger, and more mysterious than anything we suspect or anything we could understand.
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Grand Canyon During Dusk – photo by diro, bigstockphoto.com
From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.
~ Jane Goodall
Sunset, Li River, Yangshuo, China – photo by Breev Sergey, bigstockphoto.com
The final of this three-part post from “World as Lover, World as Self”:
Lastly we call on the beings of the future: All you who will come after us on this Earth, be with us now. All you who are waiting to be born in the ages to come, it is for your sakes too that we work to heal our world. We cannot picture your faces or say your names — you have none yet — but we feel the reality of your claim on life. It helps us to be faithful in the task that must be done, so that there will be for you, as there was for our ancestors: blue sky, fruitful land, clear waters.
~ Joanna Macy
Chalk Cliffs at Sunrise, Baltic Sea – photo by rissix, bigstockphoto.com
Here is part two of “World as Lover, World as Self”:
We call also on the beings of the present: All you with whom we live and work on this endangered planet, all you with whom we share this brink of time, be with us now. Fellow humans and brothers and sisters of other species, help us open to our collective will and wisdom. Aloud and silently we say your names and picture your faces . . .
~ Joanna Macy
Jungle, Southeast Asie – photo by Quickshooting, bigstockphoto.com
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
Scottsdale, AZ – photo by BCFC, 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
Yosemite Valley Sunrise – photo by lbryan, bigstockphoto.com
Truth be told, the entire world is conscious. The whole Universe is made of consciousness or “God-stuff”, even supposedly inanimate objects like rocks. As more and more people break the shackles of the false selves and realize their true natures, interspecies communication, including both animal communication and plant communication, will become more and more common.
~ Makia Freeman
Gentle Seahorse – photo by lanaid, bigstockphoto.com
We can use the practice of deep listening to go beyond what our ordinary ears can hear, reaching the divine voice that speaks of the loving feminine wisdom that connects us all. To be of ultimate service to the planet we must reconnect to the divine feminine that teaches us the power of change that comes from being, as opposed to doing.
~ Sandra Ingerman
Gentle Mist in Forest Sunrise – photo by panaramka, bigstockphoto.com
What we contemplate here is more than ecological restoration; it is the restoration of relationship between plants and people. Scientists have made a dent in understanding how to put ecosystems back together, but our experiments focus on soil pH and hydrology—matter, to the exclusion of spirit…We are dreaming of a time when the land might give thanks for the people.
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Bow Lake, Banff National Park, Canada – photo by roussien, bigstockphoto.com
As the world grows more and more out of balance, we urgently need to regain a relationship with the planet based upon the understanding of the world as a sacred living whole, and to reclaim a consciousness that is centered in that understanding. Only if we redeem the problem at its root can we hope to heal and come back into balance with our environment. Would we rape and pillage the physical world if we understood and respected its sacred nature?
But there is an even deeper, and somewhat darker, side to our forgetfulness of the sacred within creation. When our monotheistic religions placed God in heaven they banished the many gods and goddesses of the Earth, of its rivers and mountains. We forgot the ancient wisdom contained in our understanding of the sacred in creation—its rhythms, its meaningful magic. For example, when early Christianity banished paganism and cut down its sacred groves, they forgot about nature devas, the powerful spirits and entities within nature, who understand the deeper patterns and properties of the natural world. Now how can we even begin the work of healing the natural world, of clearing out its toxins and pollutants, of bringing it back into balance, if we do not consciously work with these forces within nature? Nature is not unfeeling matter; it is full of invisible forces with their own intelligence and deep knowing. We need to reacknowledge the existence of the spiritual world within creation if we are even to begin the real work of bringing the world back into balance. Only then can we regain the wisdom of the shamans who understood how to communicate and work together with the spirit world.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Garden of the Gods, CO – photo by PKimbrow, bigstockphoto.com
…the next time you sit down to eat a meal, think of all the cultures that give gratitude for their meals and consider that almost every piece of food you are likely to eat contains water. What would the image look like if Dr. Emoto took a picture of the water in that food now charged with gratitude? What would the image look like of the water in our body that had come into contact with this water from our gratitude charged food?
The next time you’re cooking soup for a loved one who isn’t feeling well, you could consider singing it a song that warms your heart. When you run a bath for yourself at the end of a long stressful day, consider the affect the epsom salt crystals, the essential oils and music may be having on not only the water in the bath, but the water in your body that makes up approximately 70% of who you are.
~ Jonathan Davis, Uplift
Rainforest Waterfall – photo by yotrak, bigstockphoto.com
This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.
~ Neil Gaiman
Nature/Elf Being, Iceland – photo by Ragnhildur Jonsdottir
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