Earth is not a platform for human life. It’s a living being. We’re not on it but part of it. Its health is our health.
~ Thomas Moore
Sunset, St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park – photo by kanonsky, bigstockphoto.com
There was a time when the distances between our world and those we considered “imaginary” were no further than a bend in the road. Each cavern and hollow tree was a doorway to another world. Humans recognized life in all things. The streams sang and the winds whispered ancient words into the ears of whomever would listen. Every blade of grass and flower had a tale to tell…There was life and purpose in all things and there was loving interaction between the worlds.
~ Ted Andrews, “Enchantment of the Faerie Realm”
Morning Woods – photo by Leonid Tit, bigstockphoto.com
Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.
~ Terry Tempest Williams, “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
Quetzal, Costa Rica – photo by Petr Salinger, bigstockphoto.com
We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits.
But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe.
We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.
~ Wendell Berry
Mountain Lupines – photo by jenyateua, 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
Sunrise, Matheson Lake, New Zealand – photo by pranodhm, bigstockphoto.com
If we remember the sacred we will find our self in a world as whole as it is holy. However we may call this mystery, it permeates all of creation. It may be more easily felt in certain places—in ancient groves, beneath star-filled skies, in temples or cathedrals, in the chords of music. But this is a mystery that belongs to all that exists—there is nothing that is separate from it. As such it celebrates the unity that is within and around us, the oneness of which we are a part. Our sense of the sacred is a recognition that we are a part of this deeper all-embracing mystery.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Tat Kuang Si Waterfalls, Laos – photo by Casanowe, bigstockphoto.com
Stories, myths, and legends have existed since the beginning of humanity. They tell us about the world around us and give us a different filter to understand how things came about. For indigenous cultures who hold the longest relationship with life and natural surroundings, everything is alive and divine––even things we consider inanimate. And everything has a story of how they came to be what they are today. Even acorns.
~ John P. Harrington
The Totem Pole, Monument Valley – photo by TravelingLight, bigstockphoto.com
To redeem life on Earth, to remember the Truth within existence, we need to remember that life is alive, that even as we try to control and dominate the planet,something deep and hidden is still interacting with us. We can call on these hidden feminine forces with their power to create and destroy. The Goddess both veils and unveils; her power can help change the illusions that are siphoning the light and lifeblood of humanity and the resources of the planet. A potent magic that can help reverse this process is right here, held and guarded in her primordial world.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Yosemite National Park – photo by upthebanner, bigstockphoto.com
There are places where if you talk to a plant they’d think you’re crazy. But in our way, it’s just good manners. What would the world look like if a developer, poised to convert a meadow into a shopping mall, had to first ask the permission of the goldenrod and the meadowlarks and had to abide by the answer?
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Quaking Aspens and Dandelions – photo by dropthepress, bigstockphoto.com
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
Red Fox in Forest – photo by fotosebek, bigstockphoto.com
At the deepest level of ecological awareness you are talking about spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness is an understanding of being imbedded in a larger whole, a cosmic whole, of belonging to the universe.
~ Fritjof Capra
Sunset, Gates Pass, Tucson, AZ 0 photo by Backyard Productions, bigstockphoto.com
For myself, solitude is rather like a folded-up forest that I carry with me everywhere and unfurl around myself when I have need.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Redwood Forest – photo by Stillfx, bigstockphoto.com
Water isn’t just for drinking or washing. Water has its own spirit. Water is alive. Water has memory. Water knows how you treat it, water knows you. You should get to know water, too.
~ Wabinoquay Otsoquaykwhan
Iguazu Falls, Argentinian Side – photo by Lovely Peace, bigstockphoto.com
The basic pattern of life is a network. Whenever you see life, you see networks. The whole planet, what we can term ‘Gaia’ is a network of processes involving feedback tubes. And the world of bacteria is critical to the details of these feedback processes, because bacteria play a crucial role in the regulation of the whole Gaian system.
~ Fritjof Capra
Mount Bromo, Indonesia – photo by Muslian, bigstockphoto.com
I believe that humanity is suffering from a great separation sickness – a real disconnect from nature. My sense is that by understanding animals more deeply, we can begin to heal ourselves.
~ Anna Breytenbach
Cheetas, Kruger National Park, South Africa – photo by Paco Como, bigstockphoto.com
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