We have forgotten the virtue of sitting, watching, observing. Nothing much happens. This is the way of nature. We breathe together, simply this. For long periods of time, the meadow is still. We watch. We wait. We wonder. Our eyes find a resting place. And then, the slightest of breezes moves the grass. It can be heard as a whisper of prayer.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Misty Forest in Autumn – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Our duty is wakefulness, the fundamental condition of life itself. The unseen, the unheard, the untouchable is what weaves the fabric of our see-able universe together.
~ Robin Craig Clark, The Garden
Tree and Milky Way, photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Each day is a ceremony – if only we could remember. But in the barrage of stimulus and inputs and tasks…we forget, at times, that this, all of this, is holy. One of our essential tasks as human beings, is, and has always been, the enactment of remembrance. This is how we make holy what is beautifully offered. This enactment becomes a response to the call of the world – a way that we confirm, affirm and grow our relationship with the web of Life.
~ Laura Weaver
Sunrise, Annapurna Mountain, Nepal – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
…Sacred trees and groves were considered as sanctuaries, and were often the location of celebrations. The ancient Irish built no temples. Instead, they treated nature as a temple. Trees were the oldest living things and were treated as sources of great wisdom. Fairy Thorns and Rag Trees were considered to be frequently visited by beings of the Otherworld. Mass Bushes served as the location for sermons and Monument Trees as the location for weddings, royal inaugurations, seasonal festivals, and other social events. Even today, there is a reverence for Fairy Trees; highway construction workers have diverted the course of their road so as to leave a single hawthorn standing.
~From Spiritual Ecology Facebook Page
Aspens in Colorado – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
We go to the sea at night and stand along the shore. We listen to the urgent roll of the waves reaching ever higher until they reach their limits and can go no farther, then return to an inward peace until the moon calls again for their presence on these shores. So it is with a fulfilling vision that we may attain?for a brief moment. Then it is gone, only to return again in the deepening awareness of a presence that holds all things together.
~ Thomas Berry
Sunset, Onego Petroglyphs, Russia – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
The basic laws of the universe are simple, but because our senses are limited, we cant grasp them. There is a pattern in creation. If we look at this tree outside whose roots search beneath the pavement for water, or a flower which sends its sweet smell to the pollinating bees, or even our own selves and the inner forces that drive us to act, we can see that we all dance to a mysterious tune, and the piper who plays this melody from an inscrutable distance – whatever name we give him – Creative Force, or God – escapes all book knowledge
~Albert Einstein
Giant Sequoia – Yosemite, photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
As Wind carries our prayers for Earth and All Life, may respect and love light our way.
May our hearts be filled with compassion for others and for ourselves.
May peace increase on Earth. May it begin with me.
~ Tibetan prayer flag is ‘Lung ta’, meaning ‘Wind Horse’
Transylvanian Alps – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
There is now a single issue before us: survival. Not merely physical survival, but survival in a world of fulfillment, survival in a living world, where the violets bloom in the springtime, where the stars shine down in all their mystery, survival in a world of meaning.
~ Thomas Berry
Cape Royal Grand Canyon – photo by Kris Wiktor, bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Biologists say that trees are social beings. They can count, learn, and remember. They nurse sick members, warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network and for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.
~ Woodland Skills Post on Facebook
Coastal Redwood Forest – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
We cannot afford the still-birth of new ideas that lack the life force that comes from the depths. We are called to return to the root of our being where the sacred is born. Then, standing in both the inner and outer worlds, we will find our self to be part of the momentous synchronicity of life giving birth to itself.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Pancake Rocks, Punakaki South Island, NZ – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Traditional knowledge is holistic, focusing on the interconnections between different parts [soils, water, biodiversity, culture] and on complexity of systems, rather than reductionist like science. It is a different type of knowledge, but just as important.
~ Krystyna Swiderska
Navjo Arch at Sunset – photo by Thomas Sheen, bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Among those who have been privileged to enter the untroubled sanctuary of nature, who has not been stirred, if only for a moment, by Earths fantastic and improbable expressions: serpentine canyons, blue pools in ancient lava, or the blossoming refuge of butterflies?
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Island of Moorea, Tahiti – photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Fungi are the grand recyclers of the planet and the vanguard species in habitat restoration.
~ Paul Stamets
White Mushrooms, Borneo Rainforest – photo by Stephan Scherhag, bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
Water has a memory and carries within it our thoughts and prayers. As you yourself are water, no matter where you are, your prayers will be carried to the rest of the world.
~ Masaru Emoto
Mountain Cascade – photo by Pavlo Kolotenko, bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
At the heart of my emerging voice was the belief that nature held the secret to harmony and unity, not just outside us, but inside us, no separation.
~ Terry Tempest Williams, Author of When Women Were Birds
Deep Montana Forest- photo from bigstockphoto.com, used with permission
