Practice guerrilla compassion — silently blessing people on-line at the bank, at the supermarket, in the cars next to us in traffic. Each blessing a tiny Sabbath, a secret sanctuary offered to a hurried and unsuspecting world.
~ Sharon Salzberg
Lotus – photo by Ange DiBennedetto
…nature teems with consciousness through and through. Matter itself tingles with the spark of spirit, and therefore nature, in all its forms and glory, is sacred to its deepest roots.
~ Christian de Quincey
Foggy Sunrise with Red Deer Stag – photo by Veneratio, bigstockphoto.com
Today you have a choice. You can choose between anger and love, division and unity, frustration and hope, selfishness and giving, turning away and showing up. Choose kindness and the choice is simple. It’s hard to regret being kind.
~ Rachel Maria Martin
Dahlia in Morning LIght – photo by Maglido Photography, bigstockphoto.com
What is magic? In the deepest sense, magic is an experience. It’s the experience of finding oneself alive within a world that is itself alive. It is the experience of contact and communication between oneself and something that is profoundly different from oneself: a swallow, a frog, a spider weaving its web.
~ David Abram
Red Squirrel – photo by Alan Tunnicliffe bigstockphoto.com
All LIFE co-exists and co-creates as ONE. Mother Earth is our shared home, an evolving self-regenerating landscape that connects, nurtures and sustains all of us together. She recycles water and air, atoms and molecules. Sharing equally with ALL. Nature, our mother (who some call Gaia) is in truth more like a planetary cell or cosmic womb than a lonely rock spinning through space. ALL LIFE is Sacred. We are ONE Earth Community. Her life is our life..
~ Christopher Chase
Public Domain – Earth from Space – photo by NASA
In the Circle we are all equal. When in the Circle, no one is in front of you. No one is behind you. No one is above you. No one is below you. The Sacred Circle is designed to create unity. On this hoop there is a place for every species, every race, every tree, and every plant. It is this completeness of Life that must be respected in order to bring about health on this planet.
~ Dave Yakima Chief
Roughs Tailed Hummingbird – photo by wollertz, bigstockphoto.com
There is a world behind this world. The old cultures used to be in constant conversation with it through the sacred practices of storytelling, dreaming, ceremony, and song. They invited the Otherworld to visit them, to transmit its wisdom to them, so that they might be guided by an ancient momentum.
But as we succumbed to the spell of rationalism, the living bridge between the worlds fell into disrepair. As fewer made the journey back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch, we forgot how to find the Otherworld.
At any given moment, we are either turning away from or coming into congruence with our kinship with mystery.
~ Toko-pa Turner
Callanish Stones at Sunset, Scotland – photo by stroop, bigstockphoto.com
In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.
~ Wangari Maathai
Sunset, Durdle Door Arch, Dorset England – photo by ianwool, bigstockphoto.com
Over the centuries, human beings have come to care more about collecting material things than supporting Nature’s gifts, people and living creations. There has been a loss of our sense of the Sacredness of Life…We’ve placed more emphasis on wanting, getting, measuring and comparing than on living, loving, learning and being. What we’ve forgotten is that every life is precious and unique. Every day, every moment. Every forest, meadow and stream, every tree, child, river and lake, is a sacred gift from the Universe.
~ Christopher Chase
Redwood Forest – photo by Jill Reid Images, bigstockphoto.com
This day has never come before, and it will never come again. Will you greet it with your curiosity? Will you bless it with your attention?
~ Jeff Foster
Cosmos Flowers – photo by kamill, bigstockphoto.com
Our goal should be to live in radical amazement, [to] get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
Northern Lights, Alaska – photo by JCB5754, bigstockphoto.com
Every being has its own voice. Every being enters into communion with other beings. This capacity for relatedness, for presence to other beings, for spontaneity in action, is a capacity possessed by every mode of being throughout the entire universe. So too every being has rights to be recognized and revered…
~ Thomas Berry
Ocelot in the Jungle, Belize – photo by Tami Freed, bigstockphoto.com
I take out the garbage. I clean the toilets. I cook the meals. When do I have time to lead a spiritual life? The answer: when I take out the garbage, when I clean the toilets, when I cook the meals. … Strive to be aware of the holy in the most mundane of things and you will see it open up before you: the everyday is the abode of the eternal.
~ Steven Charleston
Lotus – photo by kenny001, bigstockphoto.com
The Universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited.
Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightning and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees, all these have voices and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related.
~ Thomas Berry
Electrical Storm, Spain – photo by vicenfoto, bigstockphoto.com
Still as sleeping water, quiet as snow on snow, within each of us is a sacred center. … No matter how intense the struggles around us may be, there is always a steady and serene center within us. It is the place of our connection to the infinite. Rest and renew in this holy space whenever you can. It will always be there, waiting for you.
~ Steven Charleston
Sunrise in Crimea – photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
