Our separation from the natural world may have given us the fruits of technology and science, but it has left us bereft of any instinctual connection to the spiritual dimension of life – the connection between our soul and the soul of the world, the knowing that we are all part of one living, spiritual being.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
North Window Arch, Arches National Park – photo from bigstockphoto.com
Is it too much to ask, to live in a world where our human gifts go toward the benefit of all? Where our daily activities contribute to the healing of the biosphere and the well-being of other people?
…We are not just a skin-encapsulated ego, a soul encased in flesh. We are each other and we are the world.
~ Charles Eisenstein, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible
Dolomites in Winter – photo from bigstockphoto.com
Many earlier peoples saw in,,,natural phenomena a world beyond ephemeral appearance, an abiding world, a world imaged forth in the wonders of the sun and clouds by day and the stars and planets by night, a world that enfolded the human in some profound manner. This other world was guardian, teacher, healer – the source from which humans were born, nourished, protected, guided, and the destiny to which we returned.
~ Thomas Berry
Fallow Deer in Forest – photo from bigstockphoto.com
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Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept us safe among them… The animals had rights – the right of man’s protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, the right to freedom, and the right to man’s indebtedness. This concept of life and its relations filled us with the joy and mystery of living; it gave us reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all.
~ Chief Luther Standing Bear
Buffalo at Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park – photo by Sue Smith, bigstockphoto.com
The communion that comes through [the] experiences of the wild, where we sense something present and daunting, stunning in its beauty, is beyond comprehension in its reality, but it points to the holy, the sacred.
~ Thomas Berry
Waterfall, Mount Field National Park, Tasmania – photo by T. K. Kurikawa, bigstockphoto.com
We need to awaken to the wilderness itself as a source of new vitality for its own existence. For it is the wild that is creative. As we are told by Henry David Thoreau, “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” The communion that comes through these experiences of the wild, where we sense something present and daunting, stunning in its beauty, is beyond comprehension in its reality, but it points to the holy, the sacred.
~ Thomas Berry
Bryce Canyon in Snow – photo from bigstockphoto.com
We have to realize that when we deny the divine mystery of the feminine, we also deny something fundamental to life. We separate life from its sacred core, from the matrix that nourishes all creation. We cut ourselves from the source that alone can heal, nourish, and transform. The same sacred source that gave birth to each of us is needed to give meaning to our life, to nourish it with what is real and to reveal to us the mystery, the purpose of being alive. Because humanity has a central function in the whole of creation, what we deny ourselves we deny to all of life. In denying the feminine her sacred power and purpose, we have impoverished life on personal and global levels in ways we do not understand . Yes, we see now the outer effects on the earth, but it is so much more difficult to recognize the inner effects, which have been devastating.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Winter Landscape – photo from bigstockphoto.com
The first step in learning to talk to plants is cultivating politeness, realizing that the pine trees that have been here for 700 million years must have been doing something before we came on the scene a mere million years ago. The first step is to respect our elders.
~ Stephen Buhner
Foggy Northwestern Coast – photo from bigstockphoto.com
When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent. When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth.
~ John O’Donohue
Rampart Ridge, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, WA – photo by Dennis E. Quinn, bigstock.com
The power of mass intention may ultimately be the force that shifts the tide toward repair and renewal of the planet.
~ Lynne McTaggart
Arches National Park, UT – photo from bigstockphoto.com
We have to re-awaken and exercise the feeling parts of ourselves: our intuition, our body wisdom, our dreams and our deep listening. As we re-enliven the parts of our hearts that know that relationships are far more important than accomplishments, goals or task
s, well become better partners to ourselves, each other and the
Earth.
~ Nina Simons, Findhorn Fellow and co-founder of Bioneers
Kumano Kodo Trail, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Japan – photo from bigstockphoto.com
Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Iguazu Falls,Brazil – photo by Curioso Travel Photography, bigstockphoto.com
Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.
~ Teilhard de Chardin
Half Dome at Sunset – photo by Kris Wiktor, bigstockphoto.com
In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.
~ William Blake
Deep Jungle, Thailand – photo from bigstockphoto.com
If we approached rivers, mountains, dragonflies, redwoods and reptiles as if all are alive, intelligent, suffused with soul, imagination and purpose, what might the world become? Who would we become if we participated intentionally with such an animate Earth? Would the world quicken with life if we taught our children and ourselves! to sing and celebrate the stories embedded in the body of Earth, in the granite bones of mountains and rainy sky tears, in trembling volcanic bellies and green scented hills? What if we apprehended that by nourishing the land and creatures with generous praise and gratitude, with our remembrance or tears, we rejuvenate our own relationship with the wild Earth, and possibly revitalize the anima mundi or soul of the world?
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Garden of the Gods in Snow – photo from bigstockphoto.com
