The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
~ Marcel Proust
Arch Formation, Bryce Canyon – photo by D.G. Hayes, bigstockphoto.com
The belief that everything in the universe is part of the same fundamental whole exists throughout many cultures and philosophical, religious, spiritual, and scientific traditions, as captured by the phrase ‘all that is.’ The Nobel winner Erwin Schrodinger once observed that quantum physics is compatible with the notion that there is indeed a basic oneness of the universe. Therefore, despite it seeming as though the world is full of many divisions, many people throughout the course of human history and even today truly believe that individual things are part of some fundamental entity.
~ Scott Barry Kaufman
Sunset, Babson Island, Maine – photo by Cynthia Stroud
The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically related to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all the atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.
~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
Starry Sky and Baobab Trees – photo by Mikhail Dudarev, bigstockphoto.com
Here’s to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world. They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible. Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go. Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world. Be the hero you are looking for. Peace is possible. It begins with us.
~ L R Knost
Rays of Sunrise in A Foggy Forest – photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
Goddess alchemy is learning to see through this dimension into the next and welcome in what you are seeking. Healers, priestesses, and brujas of African descent have used magic for access to healing, protection, and joy since time began.
~ Abiola Abrams
Elf Garden, Iceland – photo by Ragnhildur Jonsdottir
The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!
~ Rumi
Monument Valley Sunrise – photo by Kris Wiktor, bigstockphoto.com
Everyone you meet in your life—even total strangers—is already intimately connected to you. The idea that we are all separate and distinct beings is nothing but an illusion. We are all parts of a larger whole, like individual cells in a body.
~ Steve Pavlina
Sunset Light, El Matador State Beach, CA – photo by bennymarty, bigstockphoto.com
The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we will never hear.
~ Henry Beston
Majestic Red Deer Stag – photo by Voy, bigstockphoto.com
What the idea of “thinking like a planet”…implies is that we are the planet. We are Gaia. If anything, this is what an understanding of ecology (both physical and spiritual) teaches us: that we cannot separate ourselves from the web of interconnectedness and interdependency that makes up the web of planetary life. We simply cannot affect one part of our world without affecting in some manner all other parts, including ourselves. Some of these consequences, as we are learning, can be disastrous. It is in our best interests to learn to think in terms of the whole system of which we are one part.
~ David Spangler
Twin Wailua Waterfalls, Kauai, Hawaii – photo by maximkabb, 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
Sunrise, Hunts Mesa, Monument Valley, AZ – photo by Bill45, bigstockphoto.com