…thoughts, intentions, prayer and other units of consciousness can directly influence our physical material world. Consciousness can be a big factor in creating change on the planet. Sending thoughts of love, healing intent, prayer, good intention, and more can have a powerful influence on what you are directing those feelings towards.
~ Arjun Walia
Tham Phu Kham Cave, Laos – photo by R. M. Nunes, bigstockphoto.com
Awakening to the Feminine means becoming protective of the whole of creation; dying to all the divisive ways of looking at life and each other; being born into an utterly different vision of reality. As it becomes more conscious in us, we are already becoming aware of our dependence for our continued existence on the integrity and sustainability of the planetary biosphere
~ Ann Baring, Awakening to the Feminine
Sunrise Over the Ocean – photo from bigstockphoto.com
We have little awareness of the relationship between our individual soul and the world soul. We have forgotten the ancient teaching that says that the individual is the microcosm of the whole We have lost the basic understanding of the ways our spiritual awareness, or our forgetfulness, affects the whole – of the subtle but powerful relationship between human consciousness and our inner and outer environment.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, “Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth”
Bridal Vail Falls, Telluride, CO – photo by Kris Wiktor, bigstockphoto.com
Time and space. In the desert there is space. Space is the twin sister of time. If we have open space then we have open time to breathe, to dream, to dare, to play, to pray to move freely, so freely, in a world our minds have forgotten but our bodies remember. Time and space. This partnership is holy. In these redrock canyons, time creates space–an arch, an eye, this blue eye of sky. We remember why we love the desert; it is our tactile response to light, to silence, and to stillness.
~ Terry Tempest Williams, “Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert”
Mesa Arch Sunrise, UT – photo from bigstockphoto.com
The use of the heart as an organ of perception and communication, [is] to weave us once again inextricably into the life web of the Earth, to gather knowledge from the heart of the world, and to help us live a whole and fulfilled life, to become who we are meant to be…
~ Stephen Buhner
Snow Monkeys in Hot Springs, Nagano, Japan – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Sunrise – Huangshan Mountains, China – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
I propose that the act of intending a practice to benefit a particular social unit (city, state, nation, world, etc.) creates a bridge that connects the subtle phenomena elicited by the practice with the layer of collective consciousness associated with the targeted social unit Once transmitted, these subtle phenomena may then begin to activate corresponding forms of thought and awareness in the consciousness of individual members of the targeted social unit, causing those thought forms or spiritual qualities to rise more prominently into their conscious awareness.
~ David Nicol, from “Subtle Activism: The Inner Dimension of Social and Planetary Transformation”
Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine – photo by J. Wildman, bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
It appears that [with trees] nutrient exchange and helping neighbors in times of need is the rule, and this leads to the conclusion that forests are superorganisms with interconnections much like ant colonies.
~ Peter Wohlleben
Redwood National Park, CA – photo by pmphoto, bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.
~ Terry Tempest Williams, “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice”
Cardinal in Snow – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
…we still have little understanding of the spiritual dimension within the natural world, or of how our individual soul relates to the larger dimension of the world soul (what the ancients called the anima mundi). We have mostly lost the knowledge of the spiritual practices and rituals that keep the balance in the inner and outer worlds; we have even forgotten that such practices are needed. Instead we are caught within a contemporary consciousness that focuses on the individual self, no longer even aware of our deep bond to the sacred within creation.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, “The Cry of the Earth”
Anasazi Ruins, False Kiva Canyonlands – photo by Kris Wiktor, bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching.
~ Swami Sivananda
Beach, photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
trees are to be respected and revered as living entities. They are not to be ignored as non-living objects that must be used and exploited for self-interest, but instead they are to be recognized as living forces that sustain the entire Earth.
~ Ninthin Sridhar
Spruce in Snowy Forest – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
In reality, there is a single integral community of the Earth that includes all its component members whether human or other than human. In this community every being has its own role to fulfill, its own dignity, its own inner spontaneity. Every being has its own voice. Every being declares itself to the entire universe. Every being enters into communion with other beings.
~ Thomas Berry
Asian Elephant, Thailand – photo by Sasin Tipchai, bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.
~ Terry Tempest Williams, “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place”
Yosemite Valley in Winter – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
What I know in my bones is that I forgot to take time to remember what I know. The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Moose in Early Morning – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
