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All living things are individual instruments through which the Mind of the Universe thinks, speaks and acts. We are all interrelated in a common accord, a common purpose, and a common good. We are members of a vast cosmic orchestra, in which each living instrument is essential to the complementary and harmonious playing of the whole.
~ J. Allen Boone
Snow Monkeys, Onsen Hot Springs, Nagano, Japan – photo by BlueOrange Studio, bigstockphoto.com
When we think in terms of relationships, we realise that we need to develop good relationships with the other persons in our ecosystem—prosperous, mutually beneficial relationships. A relational worldview makes us aware of our own interconnected and interdependent relationship with the world around us. So, even if we don’t believe that the tree in our garden is a person, or the river in our village, or the sky above our heads, we can still behave as if they are—our actions can be informed by a relational ecocentric perspective, rather than a purely anthropocentric one.
~Jack Hunter
Trees and Waterfall, Yosemite National Park – photo by alpenart, bigtockphoto.com
To perceive the soul of the Earth requires a sense of what Taoists call the way of life, the fact that everything in our world is in relationship to everything else, that nothing is itself without everything else, and that anything that seems to be a distinct thing is actually an element or strand in a larger pattern.
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Snowy Yosemite – photo by Andy777, bigstockphoto.com .
They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.
~ Hermann Hesse
Autumn Leaves and River – photo by silver-john, bigstockphoto.com
Grandfather,
Sacred one,
Teach us love, compassion,
and honor.
That we may heal the earth
And heal each other.
~ Ojibway Prayer
Grand Teton National Park – photo by Alexey Kamenskly, bigstockphoto.com
The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
-J. B. (John Boynton) Priestley
Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite Valley – photo by lbomarth, bigstockphoto.com
Nature is not unfeeling matter; it is full of invisible forces with their own intelligence and deep knowing. We need to re-acknowledge the existence of the spiritual world within creation if we are even to begin the real work of bringing the world back into balance.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Autumn Forest, Carpathian, Ukraine – photo by Leopnid Tit, bigstockphoto.com
Since a living presence is felt to be in and through everything, all things are seen and experienced as related. Because everything is connected through the Great Spirit, everything deserves to be treated with respect.
~ Duane Elgin
Arch Rock Canyon, Arches National Park, UT – photo by Bill Perry, bigstockphoto.com
Gratefulness…is an overall orientation to life. When we wake up in the morning and feel grateful just for the blessing of being alive, we open our heart and senses to the gifts and opportunities of another day, a day that was never guaranteed. This approach to gratitude is more radical since it isn’t contingent on a transaction—on something good happening to us—but is rather a way of living.
~ Kristi Nelson
Late Autumn Forest – photo by Fototick, bigstockphoto.com
Nature has been experimenting with fungi for a billion years, perfecting a lot of powerful survival tools. We can use these tools in fantastic ways—to revive damaged ecosystems, to help offset global warming, and even to prevent diseases.
~ Paul Stamets
Mushrooms on Tree – photo by MakcouD, bigstockphoto.com
We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.
~ Albert Einstein
Northern Lights over Sweden – photo by contas, bigstockphoto.com
Everything was possessed of personality, only differing from us in form. Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks, and the birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of earth.
~ Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Lakota Sioux
Bison, Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park – photo by Sue Smith, bigstockphoto.com
Nothing ever exists entirely alone. Everything is in relation to everything else.
~ Buddha
Flying Condor, Colca Cayon, Peru – photo by Andrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com
Practice guerrilla compassion — silently blessing people on line at the bank, at the supermarket, in the cars next to us in traffic. Each blessing a tiny Sabbath, a secret sanctuary offered to a hurried and unsuspecting world.
~ Sharon Salzberg
Sunset, Iceland – photo by Ragnhildur Jonsottir
We are each unique expressions of the one Reality, dwelling in the family of all beings. Our discipline in life is to cooperate with the way the infinite Reality wants to express through us. That is how we take up our rightful place.
~ Ellen Grace O’Brian
African Leopard, Kruger National Park South Africa – photo by bennymarty.bigstockphoto.com
