Truth be told, the entire world is conscious. The whole Universe is made of consciousness or “God-stuff”, even supposedly inanimate objects like rocks. As more and more people break the shackles of the false selves and realize their true natures, interspecies communication, including both animal communication and plant communication, will become more and more common.
~ Makia Freeman
African Bush Elephant, Kruger National Park, South Africa – photo by Paco Como, bigstockphoto.com
Stillness is vital to the world of the soul. If as you age you become more still, you will discover that stillness can be a great companion. The fragments of your life will have time to unify, and the places where your soul-shelter is wounded or broken will have time to knit and heal. You will be able to return to yourself. In this stillness, you will engage your soul. Many people miss out on themselves completely as they journey through life. They know others, they know places, they know skills, they know their work, but tragically, they do not know themselves at all. Aging can be a lovely time of ripening when you actually meet yourself, indeed maybe for the first time. There are beautiful lines from T. S. Eliot that say:
“And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
~ John O’Donohue
Yangshuo Guilin, China – photo by kenny001, bigstockphoto.com
Plants, it turns out, really are highly conscious, intelligent and yes, they do have a brain. It’s just that no one ever looked in the right place.
Depth analysis of plant consciousness since the turn of the (new) millennium is finding that their brain capacity is much larger than previously supposed, that their neural systems are highly developed—in many instances as much as that of humans, and that they make and utilize neurotransmitters identical to our own. It is beginning to seem that plants are highly intelligent, feeling beings—perhaps as much or even more so than humans in some instances. (They can even perform sophisticated mathematical computations and make future plans based on extrapolations of current conditions. The mayapple, for instance, plans its growth two years in advance based on weather patterns.)
~ Stephen Harrod Buhner
Tree People of Central Park, NYC – photo by Devadana Sanctuary
Time and space. In the desert there is space. Space is the twin sister of time. If we have open space then we have open time to breathe, to dream, to dare, to play, to pray to move freely, so freely, in a world our minds have forgotten but our bodies remember. Time and space. This partnership is holy. In these redrock canyons, time creates space—an arch, an eye, this blue eye of sky. We remember why we love the desert; it is our tactile response to light, to silence, and to stillness.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Cathedral Rock, Sedona, AZ – photo by twildlife, bigstockphoto.com
We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary 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.
~ Wendell Berry
Bow Lake, Banff National Park, Canada – photo by roussien, bigstockphoto.com
Studies have shown that positive emotions and operating from a place of peace within oneself can lead to a very different experience for the person emitting those emotions and for those around them. At our subatomic level, does the vibrational frequency change the manifestation of physical reality? If so, in what way? We know that when an atom changes its state, it absorbs or emits electromagnetic frequencies, which are responsible for changing its state. Do different states of emotion, perception and feelings result in different electromagnetic frequencies? Yes! This has been proven.
~ Arjuna Walia
Guilin, Guangxi, Karst Mountains, China – photo by SeanPavonePhoto, bigstockphoto.com
When you know that trees experience pain and have memories and that tree parents live together with their children, then you can no longer just chop them down and disrupt their lives with large machines.
~ Peter Wohlleben
Redwood Forest. Sequoia National Park, CA – photo by nstanev, bigstockphoto.com
Wholeness does not mean perfection. It means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.
~ Parker Palmer
Grand Canyon, Arizona – photo by fotoping, bigstockphoto.com
In support of the importance of, and need for, kindness toward ourselves, each other, all life forms, and our beautiful planet at this time of so much polarization, this morning we offer this poem:
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth,
so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.
To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again.
To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over
the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
~ Henry David Thoreau
Water Cascade, Zlate Mesto, Czech Republic – photo by ppart, bigstockphoto.com
I do believe in an everyday sort of magic — the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.
~ Charles de Lint
Morning Light, Crimea – photo by Leonid Tit, bigstockphoto.com
…when we place our emphasis and consciousness on the soul of the world, we’re embracing the world as something sacred, as something that has its own essence, its own purpose and destiny that might very well be different, bigger, and more mysterious than anything we suspect or anything we could understand.
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Fairy Cave, Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo – photo by mazzur, bigstockphoto.com
… the process of re-wilding – of allowing natural systems to regenerate without human interference – provides a space for non-human intelligence to flourish, unfurl, and reach its full expression.
~ Jack Hunter
Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii – photo by maximkabb, bigstockphoto.com
From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.
~ Jane Goodall
Bwindi Forest, Uganda – photo by prill, bigstockphoto.com
We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.
Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.
So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.
~ John O’Donohue
Bay of Elgol, IUsle of Skye, Scotland – photo by rdonar, bigstockphoto.com
Outside my window
two tall witch elms
toss their inspired
green heads in the sun
and lean together
whispering.
Trees make the world
a proper place.
~ Robert Nye
Elder Linden Tree, Mohni Island, Estonia – photo by Artenex, bigstockphoto.com
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