Grandfather,
Sacred one,
Teach us love, compassion,
and honor.
That we may heal the earth
And heal each other.
~ Ojibway Prayer
The Monitor and The Merrimac, near Canyonlands National Park – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
…every act we make, every word we speak, every thought we think is not only affected by the other elements in the vast web of being in which all things take part, but also has results so far-reaching that we cannot see or imagine them.
~ Joanna Macy
Forest on A Foggy Morning, from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth… This is the real message of love.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Teachings on Love
Photo by Ange DiBenedetto, used with permission
The birds and animals, trees and grasses, rocks, water and wind are our allies. They waken our senses, rouse our passions, renew our spirits and fill us with vision, courage, and joy…as long as the birds return and the flowers bloom, I will dream of a time when we value blue skies more than new automobiles, count our wealth in joy rather than possessions, and dwell in peace and balance with the Earth. I am not without hope.
~ David Gaines
Green Heron – photo from bigstock.com, used with permission
Thanks for sharing these photos…
More and more people are becoming aware that we must look at our “brokenness.” The trees, the rivers, the mountain, the rain, the earth, and the creatures of the fields and forests and seas have followed their paths of balancing all life. We know that in all creation, only a human family has strayed from the sacred way. We are the ones who must come back together to walk in the sacred way.
~ Kenneth Little Hawk , Native American Storyteller
View at Sunset From Kautz Creek – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
It has always been the business of the great seers (known to India as ‘rishis,’ in biblical terms as “prophets,” to primitive folk as ‘shamans,’ and in our own day as ‘poets’ and ‘artists’) to perform the work of the first and second functions of a mythology by recognizing through the veil of nature, as viewed in the science of their times, the radiance, terrible yet gentle, of the dark, unspeakable light beyond, and through their words and images to reveal the sense of the vast silence that is the ground of us all and of all beings.
~ Joseph Campbell
Coldwater Lake in Moonlight – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
If we are to have a culture as resilient and competent in the face of necessity as it needs to be, then it must somehow involve within itself a ceremonious generosity toward the wilderness of natural force and instinct. The farm must yield a place to the forest, not as a wood lot, or even as a necessary agricultural principle but as a sacred grove – a place where the Creation is let alone, to serve as instruction, example, refuge; a place for people to go, free of work and presumption, to let themselves alone.
~ Wendell Berry
Sacred Grove – photo from bigstock.com, used with permission
It is important to recognize the root of our longing, that we are no longer prepared to live in a purely physical world, but need the living presence of the spiritual. We need to know and be nourished by the invisible world that is within us and all around us. We need to reclaim the mystery and magic of being fully alive.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Elephant Rock at Night – photo from bigstock.com, used with permission
The planet we live on is a living organism. The trees are its lungs, the streams are its veins, and whether we realize it or not, our bodies are a part of a shared field of consciousness that contains all the native beings who reside here. The physical Earth and its biosphere are the body or feminine aspect of this field of consciousness. All of our collective consciousness is linked through this grid.
~ Spirit Science
Creek flowing through a rainforest – photo from bigstock.com, used with permission
Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness… Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.
~David Bohm
Ocean, photo from bigstock.com, used with permission
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals… In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.
~ Henry Beston
Blue and Yellow Macaw in Rainforest – photo from bigstock.com, used with permission
Thanks for sharing these photos…