…true adulthood is rooted in transpersonal experience — in a mystic affiliation with nature, experienced as a sacred calling — that is then embodied in soul-infused work and mature responsibilities. This mystical affiliation is the very core of maturity, and it is precisely what mainstream Western society has overlooked — or actively suppressed and expelled.
~ Bill Plotkin
Hallerbos Forest, Brussels, Belgium – photo by Nik_Sorokin, bigstockphoto.com
May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility.
~ Mary Anne Radmacher
Magic Spiral, Mystic Fairy Glen, Isle of Skye, Scotland – photio by Overburn, bigstockphoto.com
If we are being the very thing we would like the world to become, we will already be at peace.
~ Adyashanti
Tropical Islands, Ang Thong National Park, Thailand – photo by Gladkov, bigstockphoto.com
One of the most important contributions of the ecological movement is that it has made us conscious of the interdependence of all forms of life, the delicate web of creation…Nor do we realize the degree to which our intention, our attitude, our individual participation can affect the life of the whole and the way the future will unfold.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Glijufrabui Waterfalls, Iceland – photo by Iakov Kalinin, bigstockphoto.com
We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the…assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.
~ Wendell Berry
Upper Antelope Canyon, AZ – photo by vichie81, bigstockphoto.com
Synchronicity is more than a mere chance arrangement of disconnected parts into a pattern, for it involves a conjunction of the individual and the global, and arises out of the operation of some deeper principles that binds elements together into a fundamental pattern.
~ F. David Peat
Stars Above Monument Valley – photo by lucky photographer, bigstockphoto.com
Whether or not they contain the encapsulated wisdom of ages past, what is certain is that myths, fairy tales and folklore offer us a world imbued with participation mystique – a world in which humans are fully enmeshed. In this world, animals always have something to teach us, trees and plants can save or cure us, wise old men and women are waiting in the dark woods to help us, and a well may be a doorway to another world. Myths and folklore can put us back in touch with the seasons and turnings of the year, and they can restore our acceptance of the necessary cycles of life. They can also remind us that we have a responsibility to future generations, and to the planet as a whole. If we approach myth and story in non-human-centric ways, it places us more firmly into the wider life of the world: our personal story is enmeshed with a greater story of which we’re a part.
~ Sharon Blackie
Doorway to… – photo by Charles D, bigstockphoto.com
The belief that everything in the universe is part of the same fundamental whole exists throughout many cultures and philosophical, religious, spiritual, and scientific traditions, as captured by the phrase ‘all that is.’ The Nobel winner Erwin Schrodinger once observed that quantum physics is compatible with the notion that there is indeed a basic oneness of the universe. Therefore, despite it seeming as though the world is full of many divisions, many people throughout the course of human history and even today truly believe that individual things are part of some fundamental entity.
~ Scott Barry Kaufman
Toucan, Belize – photo by wollertz, bigstockphoto.com
When we see images of the earth from space, we see no boundaries between us, just this one blue planet, where climate change affects us all, where the global economy brings us all together. In the past, Tibet, surrounded by mountains, cherished its isolation. But, such isolation is outdated. Today, we need to take account of the well-being of the whole of humanity and preserving the health of the planet.
~His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Earth – photo from NASA
TO COME HOME TO YOURSELF
May all that is unforgiven in you,
Be released.
May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.
May all that is unlived in you,
Blossom into a future,
Graced with love.
~ John O’Donohue
Huangshan Mountain, China – photo by margoria, bigstockphoto.com
The use of the heart as an organ of perception and communication, to weave us once again inextricably into the life web of the Earth, to gather knowledge from the heart of the world, and to help us live a whole and fulfilled life, to become who we are meant to be…
~ Stephen Buhner
Sunrise, Totem Pole Rock Formation, Monument Valley, AZ – photo by Dean Fikar, bigstockphoto.com
The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we have to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships: the strength of a touch, the blessing of forgiveness, the grace of someone else taking you just as you are and finding in you an unsuspected goodness. Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal.
~ Rachel Naomi Remen
Maar Lakes, Germany – photo by LuXpics, bigstockphoto.com
This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don’t be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings.
~ Joanna Macy
Lotuses – photo by aphram, bigstockphoto.com
…the expression of gratitude is not a single act taken in response to a single instance of bounty, but part of an ongoing cycle of giving and taking, taking and giving.
~ Trebbe Johnson
Sunset in Iceland – photo by Ragnhildur Johnsdottie
Let love always lead you to listen more deeply, understand more fully, connect more securely, forgive more freely, communicate more clearly, and respond more gently.
~ L.R. Knost
Lotus – photo by Ange DiBennedetto
