It isn’t by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.
Our natural state of being is in relationship, a tango, a constant state of one influencing the other. Just as the subatomic particles that compose us cannot be separated from the space and particles surrounding them, so living beings cannot be isolated from each other… By the act of observation and intention, we have the ability to extend a kind of super-radiance to the world.
If we are to have a culture as resilient and competent in the face of necessity as it needs to be, then it must somehow involve within itself a ceremonious generosity toward the wilderness of natural force and instinct. The farm must yield a place to the forest, not as a wood lot, or even as a necessary agricultural principle but as a sacred grove – a place where the Creation is let alone, to serve as instruction, example, refuge; a place for people to go, free of work and presumption, to let themselves alone.
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.
We Originated in the Belly of a Star
Kindness is like snow; it beautifies everything it covers.
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.
In this interconnected universe, every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone. We all float on the collective level of consciousness of mankind, so that any increment we add comes back to us. We all add to our common buoyancy by our efforts to benefit life. It is a scientific fact that what is good for you is good for me.
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.
Spiritual Ecology is an exploration of the spiritual dimension of our present ecological crisis. At the core of Spiritual Ecology is an understanding that our present outer ecological crisis is a reflection of an inner spiritual crisis. Recently many people have been made aware that we are at the “eleventh hour,” or even a few minutes before midnight, of a global ecological situation that could result in catastrophic climate change or other irreversible global situations. However we are less aware of the inner spiritual crisis that underlies this outer crisis — that a lack of awareness of the sacred within ourselves and within all of life has created an inner wasteland as real as any outer landscape. The interconnection between the outer and inner is foundational to life, both our individual life and the life of all of creation, as has been understood by indigenous peoples since the very beginning; therefore we cannot address our outer ecological crisis without a real consciousness of the inner situation. We cannot redeem our physical environment without restoring our relationship to the sacred.
Matter is energy (light), whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
Nature is our direct line to inner peace. Though there can be great turmoil in the natural world (floods, earthquakes, the hunting and eating of prey), there are also endless settings of tranquility and beauty. When we steep ourselves in nature, we remember our connection to life itself, pure and simple
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