Grandfather,
Sacred one,
Teach us love, compassion,
and honor.
That we may heal the earth
And heal each other.
~ Ojibway Prayer
Spirit Falls, WA – photo by Chris Williams Exploration Photography, used with permission
Everywhere water is a thing of beauty, gleaming in the dewdrops; singing in the summer rain; shining in the ice-gems till the leaves all seem to turn to living jewels; spreading a golden veil over the setting sun; or a white gauze around the midnight moon.
~ John Ballantine Gough
El Capitan Reflection, Yosemite – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
Traditional Koyukon people live in a world that watches, in a forest of eyes. A person moving through nature – however wild, remote, even desolate the place may be – is never truly alone. The surroundings are sensate, personified. They feel. They can be offended. And they must, at every moment, be treated with the proper respect.
~ Richard Nelson
Mouse Creek Falls, NC – photo by Jeff Burcher Photography, used with permission
May your life be like a wildflower growing freely
in the beauty and joy of each day.
~ Native American Proverb
Spring Flowers, New York City, photo by Devadana Sanctuary
We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.
~ Carl Sagan
Pinnacles National Park – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
When we forget that we are embedded in the natural world, we also forget that what we do to our surroundings we are doing to ourselves.
~ David Suzuki The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature
Hug Falls at Sunset – photo by Sandy’s NW Hiking Photos, used with permission
Each experience of love nudges us toward the Story of Interbeing, because it only fits into that story and defies the logic of Separation.
~ Charles Eisenstein, from The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible
Panther Creek – courtesy of Chris Williams Exploration Photography
Were not going to save our world by sermonizing and preaching to each other. Nor will we save our world out of duty and grim determination, or by winning an argument and persuading other people that theyre wrong. We probably can only save our world through loving it enough.
~ Joanna Macy
Tahiti, photo by Devadana Sanctuary
The trees are our lungs, the rivers our circulation, the air our breath, and the earth our body.
~ Deepak Chopra
Madison Falls, photo by TAO Photography, used with permission
It is a strange and magical fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said: Being here is so much. It is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.
~ John O’Donohue
Rialto Beach – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
The process of expanding identification is not merely psychological but is grounded in reality. The process of identification is possible because there is an underlying whole of which we are, each of us, a part.
~Arne Naess
River of Light, Grand Canyon – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
The World Soul is not just a psychological or philosophical concept. It is a living spiritual substance within us and around us. Just as the individual soul pervades the whole human being – our body, thoughts, and feelings – the nature of the World Soul is that it is present within everything. It pervades all of creation, and is a unifying principle within the world.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Royal Creek – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
~ Hermann Hesse
Tahiti, photo by Devadana Sanctuary
Cover my earth mother four times with many flowers.
Let the heavens be covered with the banked-up clouds.
Let the earth be covered with fog; cover the earth with rains.
Great waters, rains, cover the earth. Lightning cover the earth.
Let thunder be heard over the earth; let thunder be heard;
Let thunder be heard over the six regions of the earth.
~ Zuni Prayer for Rain
Big Sur, CA – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground they spit upon themselves.
This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected.
~ Chief Seattle
Red Veil, Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
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