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
Winter Snow, Rising Sun – photo by jenyateua, bigstockphoto.com
If we are to step away from the present story of separation, we need to return to what is foundational, to reconnect our consciousness with the living Earth, and not just with Her physical ecosystem—helping to restore Her biodiversity, wetlands, and wild places—but also Her magical nature, Her sacred presence. Otherwise we are just living a fragment of our destiny—still treating the Earth as an object. Kinship with the Earth and all Her inhabitants is not just placing our feet on the ground, but meeting soul to soul.
~ Llewelyn Vaughan-Lee
Yosemite Valley and Bridal Veil Falls – photo by Ibomarth, bigstockphoto.com
There is an ancient and on-going human tradition of non-duality. A form reminiscent of Advaita Vedanta teaches that to view ourselves as having a separate consciousness within that looks out on a world without is an illusion…There is only one consciousness. This consciousness permeates the Universe….All physicality expresses the one consciousness limited only by the number and variety of sensory apparatus that has evolved.
~ See Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism by David J. Chalmers
Canadian River Otter – photo by jgottwald, bigstockphotol.com
A closed heart is brittle and may shatter when confronted by a crisis. An open heart is soft and supple, drawing from a strength that makes room for what life brings its way. It is as though, in opening our hearts, we create all the internal space we need to allow awareness and feelings to move through us, as the wind moves through the space between the branches of a tree, or between the leaves on the branches. The more open our hearts, the more room we have inside to meet ourselves and others with a willingness to connect and be aware. The love that is generated spontaneously by an open heart pours into our experience even as it flows out to others.
~ Nancy Napier, “Sacred Practices for Conscious Living, 2nd Edition”
Winter Sunset – photo by Yanika, bigstockphoto.com
What does it mean to say that nature is personal? In the broadest sense, it means choosing a different paradigm from the Western idea of nature as machine…It means holding the possibility that all things on Earth, even rocks and mountains, have their own will and intention.
~ Priscilla Stuckey, “Kissed By A Fox”
El Capitan, Yosemite Valley, CA – photo by jeffbanke, bigstockphoto.com
The whole aim of [Indigenous] cultures is to let the world know that they too belong to the same family and to start caring for the land, for the environment, for the mountains and waterways and the trees and every other living thing on this earth as brothers and sisters and family members. That’s our greatest dream and desire, to see that happen…
That’s the good part about it. We are not alone. The whole purpose of our living is to relate well to every other thing as family. Once we do that everything will be made right.
~ Uncle Bob Randall, Aboriginal Elder
The Twelve Apostles, Australia – photo by Gogliik83, bigstockphoto.com
From an interview on the CBC show, Tapestry:
Robin Wall Kimmerer posed the question to her forest biology students at the State University of New York, in their final class last March, before the pandemic sent everyone home.
The answer was at least as useful as anything to be found in the glut of how-to-survive COVID stories that would follow over the next nine months:
• Give more than you take
• Be patient when resources are scarce
• Find creative ways to use what you have
“Mosses have this ability, rather than demanding a lot from the world, they’re very creative in using what they have, rather than reaching for what they don’t have,” Kimmerer told Tapestry. “When there are limits, the mosses say, ‘Let’s be quiet for a while. Abundance, openness, water, will return. We’ll wait this out.'” …
Tapestry asked Kimmerer how she would go about cutting flowers to bring into her home.
“I would greet those flowers and say how beautiful they are. I’m so grateful that you’re growing here. And, you know, my mom’s coming over and I want to cheer her up. May I cut some flowers to bring your beauty to her in our house?” explains Kimmerer. “If the answer is yes … I would cut them and give a gift in return and bring them in.”
~ CBC Radio, on Tapestry, posted on Faceboo
Lichen in Moss – photo by abbet, bigstockphoto.com
I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves—we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.
~ Mary Oliver
Ocelot in Brazilian Jungle – photo by Photocech, bigstockphoto.com
The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Rainforest Creek – photo by Greg Brave, bigstockphoto.com
We’re not going to solve our own problems or the problems of the world the old way. The masculine ways, the ways of the warrior, of violence, don’t work. This is a historic time for women, and for the feminine. Women who welcome and live their own power can help shift the consciousness of the world, to bring out a more positive side of the feminine, to bring a new way of being into the world. Feminine spirit more than ever wants us to acknowledge its presence, wants us to be truthful and honest about where its energy is, and to use it to heal.
~ Sobonfu Somé
Snowy Scene – photo by optimistic_view, bigstockphoto.com
…the Reindeer Goddess honored by the ancient Lithuanian, Latvian, Slavic and Sami people of Northern Europe. These people believed that this goddess in the form or a reindeer or in a chariot pulled through the sky by reindeer flew over the land on the Winter Solstice bestowing gifts on the folks below. How exciting to discover that the quintessential modern symbol of Christmas, Santa Claus, has its origins in the Reindeer Goddess – a deity who brought the people hope as they passed through the dark time.
~ Judith Shaw
Carpathian Mountains, Romania – photo by igabriela, bigstockphoto.com
…if we are all swimming in the same ocean of subtle aliveness, then it makes sense that we would each have a direct experience of communion with, and concern for, the well-being of others. If we share the same matrix of existence, then the rest of life is already touching me, co-creating the field within which I exist.
~ Duane Elgin
Bald Eagle, Rocky Mountains – photo by Designwest, bigstockphoto.com
…We have been wrong. 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. 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
Frosty Sunset – photo by Alex_Ugaqlek, bigstockphoto.com
Have you allowed that familiar yet mysterious being we call plant to teach you its secrets? Have you noticed how deeply peaceful it is? How it is surrounded by a field of stillness? The moment you become aware of a plant’s emanation of stillness and peace, that plant becomes your teacher.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Sunset, Black Sea Cliffs – photo by Mr. Smith, bigstockphoto.com
There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves.
~ John O’Donohue
Tree in Snow – photo by jaapbleijenberg, bigstockphoto.com
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