I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
~ John Muir
Hidden Waterfall, Akaka Falls State Park, HI – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
If we recognize the sacred and embrace it within all of life, we will find that life will speak to us as it spoke to our ancestors. It will remind us of how to live in harmony with creation, and how to restore the balance that is intrinsic to life. This is the ancient wisdom of the Earth itself, the Earth which has evolved and changed over millennia, been through previous ecological shifts. Unless we return to this deep knowing, real sustainability will remain a concept rather than a lived reality. Thomas Berry speaks to this:
We need not a human answer to an earth problem, but an earth answer to an earth problem. The earth will solve its problems, and possibly our own, if we will let the earth function in its own ways. We need only listen to what the earth is telling us.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Mt. Rainier – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
Exhalation of moss, mycelium, black mould; wafted savor of a thousand earthly growths, damp, clinging, redolent; aroma of mighty roots, of invisible spawn and seed – all the vast stirring of the earths desire.
~ Virginia Garland
Ireland – photo by Devadana Sanctuary
The basic pattern of life is a network. Whenever you see life, you see networks. The whole planet, what we can term ‘Gaia’ is a network of processes involving feedback tubes. And the world of bacteria is critical to the details of these feedback processes, because bacteria play a crucial role in the regulation of the whole Gaian system.
~ Fritjof Capra
Tatoosh Range – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
In short, plants possess a highly developed root brain which works much as ours does to analyze incoming data and generate sophisticated responses…The plant neural net, or brain, is highly plastic when compared to ours.
~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, Plant Intelligence
Merriman Falls, photo by Sandy’s NW Hiking Photos, used with permission
To reenchant nature is not merely to gain a new perspective for its integrity and well-being; it is to throw open the doors to a deeper level of existence.
~ Alister E. McGrath
Moonbow and Big Dipper, Lower Yosemite Falls, Yosemite – photo by Gary Hart Photography, 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
Coastline, photo by Skier Dude via wikipedia.com
Thanks for sharing these photos…
Everything is alive and is making choices that determine the future, so the world is constantly creating itself. With the wisdom and time for reflection that old age provides, we may discover unsuspected relationships.
~ Vine Deloria, Jr., Standing Rock Sioux
Lake Ann, North Cascades – photo by Sandy’s NW Hiking Photos, used with permission
We need to look deeply at things in order to see. When a swimmer enjoys the clear water of a river, he or she should also be able to be the river. If we want to continue to enjoy our rivers — to swim in them, walk beside them, even drink their water — we have to meditate on being the river. If we cannot feel the rivers, the mountains, the air, the animals, and other people from within their own perspective, the rivers will die and we will lose our chance for peace.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Yosemite – photo by Gary Hart Photography, 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
Hoh River Trail – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.
~ Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator
Rainforest Herd, Hoh Rainforest – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
Once we step into the reality of a holistic consciousness that is truly in “interrelationship” with the whole, we will find our self in a very different world in which everything is interacting with us in a continually dynamic state. Even our consciousness is affecting the physical world. The question then becomes what is our role in this truly interdependent reality? Even our present image of “deep ecology” primarily sees the world through a consciousness of separation – the analytic and rational framework of our education and conditioning. We rarely experience our consciousness merged into the oneness of the world around us, as for example exists with indigenous peoples for whom even the idea of an individual being separate from their environment does not exist.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Bermagui, Australia – photo by Mark Gray, used with permission
The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass, they speak to me.
The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky,
the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning, the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me.
The strength of the fire, the taste of the salmon,
the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away,
they speak to me.
And my heart soars.
~Chief Dan George
Bench Lake, Mt. Rainier – photo by Sandy’s NW Hiking Photos, used with permission
Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
~Albert Einstein
Summer Sunset, Desert View, Grand Canyon – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
when you look at the interconnected network of plant roots and micorrhizal mycelia in any discrete ecosystem, you are looking at a neural network much larger than any individual human has ever possessed.
~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, Plant Intelligence
Hilo, Hawaii – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 226
- 227
- 228
- 229
- 230
- …
- 302
- Next Page »