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
Winter Forest and River – photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
Daily Inspiration
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If we look at the idea of planetary consciousness from the perspective of an individual, we could describe it as a state of consciousness in which a person identifies on some level with the entire human species and/or the entire community of life on Earth.
~ David Nicol
Giraffe at Sunset, Mapungubwe National Park, South Africa – photo by Fabio Lamanna, bigstockphoto.com
When the powers of nature are the focus of your awareness and your thoughts, you come near to spirit, near to the source of all life. This is why most people love to walk in the woods or by the sea: they come close to the original source, and it is healing just to be in its presence. It cleanses you, brings peace of mind, touches your heart and brings you home to your soul.
~ Chris Luttichau
Sunrise in An Alpine Forest – photo by panaramka, bigstockphoto.com
…we are all energy, radiating our own unique energy signature. Feelings, thoughts and emotions play a vital role, quantum physics helps us see the significance of how we all feel. If all of us are in a peaceful loving state inside, it will no doubt impact the external world around us, and influence how others feel as well.
~ Arjun Walia
Aurora Borealis, Yukon, Canada – photo by PiLens, bigstockphoto.com
There are also all the subtle realms. For some extraordinary reason, we as a culture have dismissed, forgotten rejected. And yet they belong to all of the different spiritual traditions—the shaman who works with the spirit world, the Tibetan Buddhist who works with deities, devas, and the land, or the Christian monk who prays to angels and icons of the saints, and even the Zen monk immersed in the Void in this realm
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Interview with David Nicole
Mystic Fairy Glen, Isle of Skye, Scotland – photo by Overbum, bigstockphoto.com
The roots of all living things are tied together. Deep in the ground of being, they tangle and embrace. If we look deeply, we find that we do not have a separate self-identity, a self that does not include sun and wind, earth and water, creatures and plants, and one another.
~ Joan Halifax
Winter Forest at Sunset – photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
We humans are all intimately interconnected. How we treat each other matters to the health and well being, perhaps even the survival, of all of us as a species, not in some vague future, but in this very moment. Kindness is the natural response to recognizing interconnectedness. And in that kindness is true wisdom.
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
Nuggets Point, New Zealand – photo by kavram, bigstockphoto.com
I pledge allegiance to the Earth,
and to the flora, fauna, and human life that it supports,
one planet indivisible,
with safe air, water and soil,
economic justice, equal rights,
and peace for all.
~ Women’s Environment and Development Organization
African Sunset, Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe – photo by Artush, bigstockphoto.com
Redeveloping the capacity for heart-centered cognition can help each of us reclaim personal perception of the living and sacred intelligence within the world, within each particular thing.
~ Stephen Buhner
Yellow Lotus – photo by amnachphoto, bigstockphoto.com
… the first step is to acknowledge that the world is a spiritual being, just as you acknowledge for yourself that you are a spiritual being. And the next is to recognize the mysterious relationship between the individual and the world, known traditionally as microcosm and macrocosm, in which every human being is the microcosm of the whole.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Forest Waterfall, Thailand – photo by kam684, bigstockphoto.com
Animal communicators have most likely existed for a long time, probably in every single culture in the world. It is only in our modern Western materialistic culture, which has been influenced by mainstream institutions of religion and science based on perceiving a reality of separateness, that such a possibility seems so outlandish. However…animal communication, also known as interspecies communication, is a very real phenomenon.
~ Makie Freeman
Squirrel, Flipstad, Sweden – photo by Bluejava, bigstockphoto.com
The inclusion of indigenous peoples in environmental management presents an important opportunity to learn from generations of careful observation while simultaneously reinforcing the right of indigenous peoples to use, access and act as stewards of their traditional lands. Environmental governance is strengthened by a growing number of collaborative initiatives aiming to include the perspectives and knowledge of indigenous peoples to improve environmental conservation and management.
~ Hannah Rundle
Bryce Canyon Hoodoos – photo by Kabbri, bigstockphoto.com
When we come to consider the possibility that a mysterious energy of infinite wisdom, patience, and compassion is operating in, as, and through us and everyone else, we open doors to a new experience of life; when we realize this level of trust, our life changes forever.
~ Dan Millman
River in Winter, Ontario Canada – photo by elenathewise, bigstockphoto.com
This is perhaps one of the most important things I learned during this investigation: We see what we believe, and not just the contrary; and to change what we see, it is sometimes necessary to change what we believe.
~ Jeremy Narby, “The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
Dalmatia, Croatia – photo by AnnaElizabeth photography, bigstockphoto.com
When we know nature as the mother’s body and everything in nature as utterly sacred then, and then only, will we do everything in our power to preserve, honor and protect nature.
~ Andrew Harvey
Winter Forest Sunset – photo by Yanika, bigstockphoto.com