Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. … Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects.
~ E. O. Wilson
Pine Forest – photo by makam69, bigstockphoto.com
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless.
~ Pema Chödrön
Sunrise, Portage Creek, Milham Park, Michigan – photo by dpennala, bigstockphoto.com
For the Lakota, kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them.
The animals had rights—the right of human protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, the right to freedom, and the right to our indebtedness—and in recognition of these rights the Lakota never enslaved an animal and spared all life that was not needed for food and clothing.
This concept of life and its relations was humanizing and gave to the Lakota an abiding love. It filled their being with the joy and mystery of living; it gave them reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all. From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things—the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals… Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery.
~ Chief Luther Standing Bear
Raven in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah – photo by dmitry kushch, bigstockphoto.com
There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility and our hearts to love life. Without this subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearisome, and no horizon would ever awaken our longing. Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is wedded to the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here as blessing. We enter the world as strangers who all at once become heirs to a harvest of memory, spirit, and dream that has long preceded us and will now enfold, nourish, and sustain us.
~ John O’Donohue
Cave, Belize – photo by Kevin Wells Photography, bigstockphoto.com
…our bodies are a combination of human cells together with other microorganisms whom we host. We inhabit a system of nested relationships which are interconnected and interdependent. From this view the self is not a static or clearly defined “thing” but more a process.
~ Mary Jane Rust
Sea Sunset Beach, Caribbean – photoi by Danlin, bigstockphoto.com
Once we step outside of the illusion of our own separate self, a radically different picture emerges. Our true nature exists in a dimension of oneness. Unlike the ego, which always looks out for its own self-interest, the Self reflects a vision of unity, in which each individual part is nourished according to its real need. A glimpse of the Self gives us a sense of an interconnected oneness in which nothing is separate: everything is an expression of a oneness that is dynamically alive. Every person, every stone, is this oneness; everything is connected and interdependent. Our individual Self is the Universal Self and it is all a living organism of light and love.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Snow Season – photo by jaapbleijenberg, bigstockphoto.com
What if our religion was each other? If our practice was our life? If prayer, our words? What if the temple was the Earth? If forests were our church? If holy water, the rivers, lakes, and ocean? What if meditation was our relationships? If the teacher was life? If wisdom was self-knowledge? If love was the centre of our being?
~ Ganga White
Bohey Duland Island, Borneo – photo by Zulkiffle Mohd Kassim, 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
Bull Elk, Autumn Sunrise – photo by twildlife, bigstockphoto.com
…we too are a part of nature, and confront a similar survival struggle as plants do. To illustrate the point, [Stephen} Buhner points out the wonders of plant terpenes, a large group of hydrocarbons found in the oils of plants. Terpenes, he writes, “purify the air, modulate plant emergence, enhance the respiration of the plant community, feed into mycelial networks, and play an essential role in the formation of humic acid.”
According to Buhner, this is prime evidence of how plants are, by their nature, working for the greater good. Plants, he says, “exist not for themselves alone; they create and maintain the community of life on Earth, they produce the chemistries all life needs to live, and they heal other living organisms that are ill.
~ Angelo Druda
Lebanon Cedar Forest – photo by Anna Om, bigstockphoto.com
What if there were another system and jurisprudence, based upon the concept that the planet and all of its species have rights — and they have those rights by virtue of their existence as component members of a single Earth community?
~ Thomas Berry
Mountain Forest – photo by Bilanola, bigstockphoto.com
A woman once described a friend of hers as being such a keen listener that even the trees leaned toward her, as if they were speaking their innermost secrets into her listening ears. Over the years I’ve envisioned that woman’s silence, a hearing full and open enough that the world told her its stories. The green leaves turned toward her, whispering tales of soft breezes and the murmurs of leaf against leaf.
~ Linda Hogan
Deep Tropical Jungle, Nepal – photo by Quickshooting, bigstockphoto.com
Goddess alchemy is learning to see through this dimension into the next and welcome in what you are seeking. Healers, priestesses, and brujas of African descent have used magic for access to healing, protection, and joy since time began.
~ Abiola Abrams
Acacia Tree at Sunset, Amboseli National Park, Kenya – photo by ajn, bigstockphoto.com
The root of joy is gratefulness. It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
Pine Forest on Rock Cliff, Dalmatia, Croatia – photo by AnnaElizabeth photography, bigstockphoto.com
At this time, we encounter] the important dual role of being at one and the same time hospice workers of a dying system that no longer serves and is degenerating human and planetary health, whilst at the same time becoming midwives of the diverse regenerative cultures that manifest humanity’s potential to act as a healing and regenerative expression of presence within the ecosystems we inhabit.
~ Daniel Christian Wahl
Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah – photo by RuslanKphoto, bigstockphoto.com
We should never underestimate the power of kindness to positively affect our world. Simple kindness is a powerful spiritual force. If we had more of it in the world, we could transform society into a manifestation of compassion, and that would truly be a blessing!
~ David Spangler
Tianzi Mountains, Zhangjiajie National Forest, China – photo by effred, bigstockphoto.com
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- …
- 305
- Next Page »