Gratefulness draws on the best of the human spirit in all of us. It renews and refreshes us, and best of all it is contagious.
~ Amy Edelstein
Monument Valley Sunrise – photo by Dean Fikar, bigstockphoto.com
The roots of all living things are tied together. Deep in the ground of being, they tangle and embrace. If we look deeply, we find that we do not have a separate self-identity, a self that does not include sun and wind, earth and water, creatures and plants, and one another.
~ Joan Halifax
Green Forest in Misty Morning, Phuket, Thailand – photo by kovalva, bigstockphoto.com
Just for a moment, drop your opinions. The world will survive without them for a little while. This is a spiritual practice, is it not? Drop your opinions and feel the freedom, the ineffable clarity, the boundless expansion. Do this not just for yourself, but for the whole entangled field of consciousness. Even a moment of inward silence is of great service to humanity.
~ Fred LaMotte
Sun Rays in Deep Forest – photo by Subbotina Anna, bigstockphoto.com
We are undergoing a species level [rite] of passage and it is time to come home into the community of life, not to exert ‘power-over’, but to enable ‘power-with’. We can co-create a world of shared abundance rather than competitive scarcity, but to do so it is time to become mature members of the community of life. We need to redesign the human presence and impact on Earth from being exploitative and degenerative to being regenerative and healing. What’s more, we need to do this within the lifetimes of those alive today.
~ Daniel Christian Wahl
Mountain Lake Sunset, Altai Mountains – photo by PrimePhoto, bigstockphoto.com
If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear, people who can open to the web of life that called us into being, and who can rest in the vitality of that larger body.
~ Joanna Macy
The Kumano Kodo Trail, Sacred Trail in Nachi, Japan – photo by SeanPavonePhoto, bigstockphoto.com
Consciousness exists in everything, but manifests itself in different ways. The scientific field of neurobiology has been effective in demonstrating consciousness in plants. Plant consciousness is evidenced by the process of bio-communication in plant cells, which means that plants are sentient life forms that feel, know, and are conscious.
~ Paul Lenda
Tropical Jungle – photo by Quickshooting, bigstockphoto.com
We are a part of the sacred and it is a part of us—it belongs to our real nature. It is only the disconnection of our culture, its fundamental forgetfulness, that has isolated us within our own individual ego self, seemingly separate, struggling, unsupported by this basic energy and power within creation. Once we have learned to walk in a sacred manner, our feet touching the earth, we honor this connection that links our soul to the world soul, our breath to the breath of the spirit, that reveals our individual story as a part of the Earth’s story.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Mountaintop Tree at Evening Time – photo by Sanja22, bigstockphoto.com
It [realization of Oneness] means being constantly open to the possibility that we are like two flowers looking at each other from two different branches of the same tree, so that if we were to go deep enough inside to the trunk, we would realize that we are one. Just being open to this possibility will have a profound effect on your relationships and on your experience of the world.
~ Francis Lucille
Flowering Cherry Tree – photo by Saharosa, bigstockphoto.com
How you love means more than you know. When you reach out into the world in love, you create both a sign and a reality. You let others see what spiritual love can be. You offer a living alternative that others can make their own. Love is more than a sentiment: it is the heartbeat of a lifetime.
~ Steven Charleston
Orchids and Zen Basalt Stones – photo by a_lisa bigstockphoto.com