Everything is alive…we come from a culture that doesn’t teach us these things innately, and we have to pursue learning them. All that you might learn from me about communicating with the plants also applies to the rocks, the sky, the wind, the hawk that just flew by, the cloud people. And, something that’s very important to understand about this is that we are all capable of doing that. We wouldn’t be here as human beings if we weren’t able to communicate with the rest of our relatives.
~ Doug Simons
White Mushroom, Tropical Rainforest, Borneo, Malaysia – photo by Stephanscherhag, bigstockphoto.com
You are comprised of: 84 minerals, 23 Elements, and 8 gallons of water spread across 38 trillion cells.
You have been built up from nothing by the spare parts of the Earth … You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur, and shark teeth, broken down to their smallest parts and rebuilt into our planet’s most complex living thing.
You are not living on Earth. You are Earth.
~ Aubrey Marcus
Earth – photo from NASA
I’ve always been impressed that we are here, surviving, because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien
Spring Renewal, Central Park, New York City – photo by Devadana Sanctuary
We are interdependent with the body of the Earth. The minerals of the soil make up our wheat and our bones, the storm clouds become our drinks and our blood, the oxygen from the trees and forests is the air we breathe. The more consciously we realize this shared destiny, the more compassion arises for the earth itself.
Your family is all of humanity, all the animals, all beings on earth. Include them all in your heart. Live with gratitude. What the times ask is a change of consciousness—a shift from the fearful, separate consciousness, the consciousness of us versus them, to the consciousness of connection and interdependence.
~ Jack Kornfield
St Mary Lake, Wild Goose Island, Glacier National Park – photo by karnonsky, 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
Trumpeter Swans, Alaska – photo by Christopher Boswell, bigstockphoto. com
Every tree, every plant, has a spirit. People may say that the plant has no mind. I tell them that the plant is alive & conscious. A plant may not talk, but there is a spirit in it that is conscious, that sees everything, which is the soul of the plant, its essence, what makes it alive. The channels through which the water & sap move are the veins of the spirit.
~ Pablo Amaringo
Linden Tree, Mohni Island, Estonia – photo by 233858275, bigstockphoto.com
We are all lives in other skins, furs, feathers, or scales, each with different visions and dreams and histories, different kinds of earth intelligence, all of it making for one great whole.
~ Linda Hogan
Great Egret, Florida Everglades – photo by icholakov, bigstockphoto.com
…for thousands of years as we walked the Earth, sang Her songs, learned to pray in a variety of ways. We were all a part of One Living Being that spoke and sang in innumerable voices.
But then, gradually, for the majority of humanity we forgot. We forgot this primordial covenant. We forgot how the patterns of creation were woven both into the Earth and into our own souls. We forgot how we are all a part of this One Living Being, both whole and holy. We began to walk our own path, thinking, believing ourself separate from the world around us, from the ground under our feet. We even believed that we were superior, apart from nature—that we had “dominion over” the Earth. Gradually the light from above and the light from within the Earth no longer met and danced, no longer united within our hearts and souls…
…There is a living future waiting to awaken out of this dying dream. There is a pathway to follow, and signs to lead us there. There is a place where the worlds come together and magic can be born. Not the magic of computers which has dazzled us, but closer to the Earth magic that long ago whispered to us the secrets of creation, the language of the animals, the songs of the birds.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Muir Woods Redwoods, CA – photo by mximkabb, bigstockphoto.com
Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you’d think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.
~ Lewis Thomas
Moonrise, Arches National Park, UT – photo by HS Digital, bigstockphoto.com
The accelerating ecological destruction wrought by contemporary humankind seems to stem not from any inherent meanness in our species but from a kind of perceptual obliviousness, an inability to actually notice anything outside the sphere of our human designs, a profound blindness and deafness to the more-than-human earth.
…it is only by waking the senses from their contemporary swoon, freeing our eyes and our ears and our skin to actively participate, once again, in the breathing cosmos of wind and rain and stone, of spider-weave and crow-swoop and also, yes, the humming song of the streetlamp pouring its pale light over the leaf-strewn pavement, that we may have a chance of renewing our vital reciprocity with the animate, many-voiced earth.
~ David Abrams
Erawan Waterfall and Elephant, Kanchanaburi, Thailand – photo by anekoho, bigstockphoto.com
What I know in my bones is that I forgot to take time to remember what I know. The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Sunrise from a Cave – photo by lovleah, bigstockphoto.com
Science can point out dangers, but science cannot turn the direction of minds and hearts. That is the province of spiritual powers within and without our very beginnings—powers that are the mysteries of life itself.
~ Oren Lyons
Grand Canyon Sunset – photo by fotoping, bigstockphoto.com
If we can have a holistic view of soil, soul and society, if we can understand the interdependence of all living beings, and understand that all living creatures—from trees to worms to humans—depend on each other, then we can live in harmony with ourselves, with other people and with nature.
~ Satish Kumar
Plitvice National Park,Croatia – photo by AnnaElizabeth photography, bigstockphoto.com
Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.
~ Mary Oliver
Black Sea at Sunset – photo by Mr. Smith, bigstockphoto.com
We think that the problems of the world and of ourselves can only be solved through “doing,” not realizing that it is this focus on ceaseless activity that has created much of our present imbalance. Rather than always asking, “What should I do?,” we can learn to reflect, “How should I be?”
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Hoodoos, Bryce Canyon at Sunrise photo by lbryan, bigstockphoto.com
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