There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
~ Albert Einstein
White Marsh Flower – photo from bigstockphoto.com
I feel very hopeful that we will come through the ecological crisis we are now facing. I feel hopeful about the future. And the reason for my hope is that I have witnessed the power of the ancient spiritual practice of shamanism to heal and transform alongside other spiritual traditions.
It is time for us to apply the spiritual forms of healing to the ecological crisis of our times, while embracing shamanism as a way of life. In order to have long-term healing, we must live a life that honors and respects the earth and all of life.
~ Sandra Ingerman
Moon Over Monument Valley – photo from bigstockphoto.com
…the intermediaries between the human community and the more-than-human community — the animals, the plants, the trees, even whole forests are considered to be living, intelligent forces. Even the winds and the weather patterns are seen as living beings. Everything is animate. Everything moves. It’s just that some things move slower than other things, like the mountains or the ground itself. But everything has its movement, has its life. And the magicians [shamans/healers] were precisely those individuals who were most susceptible to the solicitations of these other-than-human shapes. It was the magicians who could most easily enter into some kind of rapport with another being, like an oak tree, or with a frog.
~ An excerpt from ‘The Ecology of Magic’, a Scott London Interview with David Abram, anthropologist, philosopher, magician and author of The Spell of the Sensuous.
Great Hornbill in Rainforest – photo from bigstockphoto.com
In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
MIsty Morning Forest, Phuket, Thailand – photo from bigstockphoto.com
I place on the altar of dawn, the quiet loyalty of breath. The tent of thought where I shelter, waves of desire I am shore to and all beauty drawn to the eye. May my mind come alive today to the invisible geography that invites me to new frontiers. To break the dead shell of yesterdays, to risk being disturbed and changed. May I have the courage today to live the life that I would love. To postpone my dream no longer but to do at last what I came here for, and waste my time on fear no more.
~ John O’ Donohue
Mountain Sunrise – photo from bigstockphoto.com
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
Los Hevideros Coastline, Lanzarote Island, Spain – photo from bigstockphoto.com
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
African Elephant, Kruger National Park, South Africa – photo from 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
Monument Valley – photo from bigstockphoto.com
The current state of the world evokes great anguish and despair for anyone paying attention, but this is especially true for those with mature hearts, who feel the world’s degradation all the more acutely. We must learn to behold and hold all this dying and loss, including our own, and still act to preserve and protect what we can.
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Merced River and Yosemite Falls – photo from bigstockphoto.com
In this information age awash with so many words it is easy to undervalue an instinctual knowledge that comes from within. But the sacred principles of life have never been written down: they belong to the heartbeat, to the rhythm of the breath and the flow of the blood. They are alive like the rain and the rivers, the waxing and waning of the moon. If we learn to listen we will discover that life, the Great Mother, is speaking to us, telling us what we need to know.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sunset in the Maldives – photo from bigstockphoto.com
There is action to be taken in the outer world, but it must be action that comes from a reconnection with the sacred — otherwise we will just be reconstellating the patterns that have created this imbalance.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sunset, Arizona Desert – photo by Jeni Foto, bigstockphoto.com
Exploration #9
Over the years, I’ve posted quite a few practices focused on water on my nancynapier.com website—practices that focus on the way that water absorbs and “remembers” the qualities of thought, emotion, and presence that touch it, on the importance of offering blessings to water whenever and wherever we encounter it. The other day, I read the following from a Facebook post by Water Transformations:
“Did you know that the thoughts you are thinking are establishing a frequency in the water in your body? If you are thinking loving thoughts, forgiving and compassionate thoughts, your BodyWater is circulating that throughout your body. That is why, when you are feeling good inside and counting your blessings, it seems easier to stay in a good mood. Conversely, if your thoughts are angry, frustrated, or self-critical, it is challenging to shift into happier feelings.”
For this week’s exploration, I invite you to act as if this quotation speaks an important truth and then notice how your relationship to water may change, deepen, or in some other way touch you in a meaningful way. View More
Ancient humans felt (and many indigenous people today feel) a burning responsibility to show their respect, honor, and gratitude to Nature, to the Universe, and to Mother Earth which gave them life. And so, they created rituals involving singing, dancing, lighting fires, and different types of prayer. These activities raised the vibration of the Earth and all life. Their actions, carried out with great love and gratitude in their hearts, reinforced and strengthened the forces of nature all around them. In turn, the Earth and the Universe protected and supported the humans, sharing with them the great abundance of existence.
~ Jocelyn Mercado
Glacier National Park, Montana – photo by Marty Nelson, bigstockphoto.com
Among those who have been privileged to enter the untroubled sanctuary of nature, who has not been stirred, if only for a moment, by Earth’s fantastic and improbable expressions: serpentine canyons, blue pools in ancient lava, or the blossoming refuge of butterflies?
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Yosemite National Park – photo by Gary Tognoni, 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
Monument Valley – photo by Andrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com
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