The role of a contemporary shaman, as I see it, is to be a living testimony of the experiential awareness of the unity of all aspects of life. This implies contributing to the release of separation, and promoting our human sense of purpose through the acknowledgment of the wider reality in which we exist.
~ Franco Santoro
Sunset, Garden of the Gods, CO – photo by CGJ Photography, bigstockphoto.com
‘Love and gratitude’ are the words that must serve as the guide for the world.
~ Masaru Emoto
Tropical Coral Reef – photo by Davdeka, bigstockphoto.com
Lovingkindness, called metta in Sanskrit, is the state of mind and being from which compassion emerges naturally. When we practice lovingkindness, we truly enter a realm in which we recognize that all beings—including ourselves, our loved ones, and our enemies—seek to be happy and free from suffering. We not only recognize and empathize with the suffering of others, as we do when we experience compassion, we also actively wish for all beings to be free from suffering and to find happiness.
~ Nancy Napier, “Sacred Practices for Conscious Living, 2nd Edition”
Apple Blossoms – photo by SeNata, bigstockphoto.com
…the growing body of research on plant and animal cognition suggests that non-human personhood is something we will increasingly have to take seriously.
~ Jack Hunter
Red Fox – photo by fotosebek, bigstockphoto.com
…matter itself tingles with consciousness at the deepest level. It’s there in the cells of every living creature, even in molecules and atoms.
~ From Goodreads website in a review of Christian de Quincey, “Radical Nature: The Soul of Nature”
Dense Tropical Jungle – photo by Quickshooting, bigstockphoto.com
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
~Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Grand Canyon at Dusk – photo by diro, bigstockphoto.com
Oneness is not a metaphysical idea but something so simple and ordinary. It is in every breath, in the wing-beat of every butterfly, in every piece of garbage left in the city streets. This oneness is life, life no longer experienced solely through the fragmented vision of the ego, but known within the heart, felt in the soul. This oneness is the heartbeat of life…In this oneness life celebrates itself and its divine origin.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Blue Longwing Butterfly – photo by Peter Milota, Jr., bigstockphoto.com
It quickly becomes clear that in this mode of cognition [living from heart perception and intelligence], through this perception of Nature, all of Nature is one unified whole, all things are unremovable parts of one thing.
~ Stephen Buhner
Foggy Forest, Majestic Tree People – photo by stock_king, bigstockphoto.com
Each day is a ceremony – if only we could remember. But in the barrage of stimulus and inputs and tasks…we forget, at times, that this, all of this, is holy. One of our essential tasks as human beings, is, and has always been, the enactment of remembrance. This is how we make holy what is beautifully offered. This enactment becomes a response to the call of the world – a way that we confirm, affirm and grow our relationship with the web of Life.
~ Laura Weaver
Khamin Waterfall, Kanchanaburi, Thailand – photo by littlegallery, bigstockphoto.com
…the singularity that people don’t realize, or most people don’t realize is that we are descendants of fungi. We were born from fungi 650 million years ago, fungi gave birth to animals. And so many of these mushroom species are much older than we are. We were basically little voles at the time that mushrooms had their true forms, many of them and so mycelial networks, multicellular organisms. The first evidence of a multicellular organism has been found in Lava Beds, and it is a mycelium.
~ Paul Stamets
Mushrooms on A Stump, Germany – photo by danil_1972, bigstockphoto.com
We live in a world of energy. An important task at this time is to learn to sense or see the energy of everyone and everything — people, plants, animals. This becomes increasingly important as we enter the World of the Fifth Sun, for it is associated with the element ‘ether’ — the realm where energy lives and weaves. Go to the sacred places of the Earth to pray for peace, and have respect for the Earth which gives us our food, clothing, and shelter. We need to reactivate the energy of these sacred places. That is our work.
~ Carlos Barrios, Mayan Elder & Ajq’ij of the Eagle Clan
Sunrise, Hunts Mesa, Monument Valley, AZ – photo by Bill45, bigstockphoto.com
The whole of planet Earth
Is a sacred site.
All people are the chosen people,
And the purpose of our lives is a spiritual one.
May we care for each other,
And for the earth,
for everything
Relates to everything else.
Feeling this oneness,
May we radiate the light of love
And kindness that all may live in unity and peace.
~ Teach Only Love, Facebook
Dandelions and Quaking Aspens – photo by dropthepress, bigstockphoto.com
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
Dolomite Alps, Italy – photo by stevanzz, bigstockphoto.com
Whenever you come upon Water in its natural state, you approach it with respect; you introduce yourself to it. Take time to pay respect to it. For Water gives life, we live inside Water for nine months in our mother’s womb. Then we follow the Water into this world. It is sacred, we depend on Water for the rest of our life. Water is Life…
Allow for a moment of gratitude the next time you take a drink of Water. Then, hope will flicker within – hope that allows us to envision a way, a path towards a more compassionate and caring society that heeds the consciousness that Water is Life.
~ Mona Polacca
Waterfall, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia – photo by Shinedawn, bigstockphoto.com
It is easy to dismiss the magical world as just a fairy tale belonging to childhood or old tales. That what we need at this moment more than ever is hard science, that carbon reduction and loss of biodiversity are our most pressing concerns. And yes, there is important work to be done reducing our industrial imprint, healing the Earth from the damage we have inflicted. But if we do not remove the rational blinkers from our consciousness how can we respond to the deeper need of the moment, and recognise that we are part of a world in which spirit and matter are not separate but sing together – something long known to our ancestors who walked upon sacred ground and danced, spoke and sung to the spirits of the land.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Forest Cathedral Pathway – photo by lostbear, bigstockphoto.com
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