Daily Inspiration

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Our time is hungry in spirit. In some unnoticed way we have managed to inflict severe surgery on ourselves. We have separated soul from experience, become utterly taken up with the outside world and allowed the interior life to shrink. Like a stream disappears underground, there remains on the surface only the slightest trickle. When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what we are here for visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.

~ John O’Donohue

Takhlakh Lake, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission

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Different gods dwell in different places, and different demons. Each place has its own dynamism, its own patterns of movement, and these patterns engage the senses and relate them in particular ways, instilling particular moods and modes of awareness, so that unlettered, oral people will rightly say that each place has its own mind, its own personality, its own intelligence.

~ David Abram

Sunset Light and Pines, Half Dome – Yosemite, photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission

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What an irony it is that these living beings whose shade we sit in, whose fruit we eat, whose limbs we climb, whose roots we water, to whom most of us rarely give a second thought, are so poorly understood. We need to come, as soon as possible, to a profound understanding and appreciation for trees and forests and the vital role they play, for they are among our best allies in the uncertain future that is unfolding.

~ Jim Robbins

Old Growth Douglas Fir – by KR Backwoods Photography – used with permission

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I have come into this world to see this: the sword drop from men’s hands even at the height of their arc of rage because we have finally realized there is just one flesh we can wound.

~ Hafiz

Cumberland Falls, KY – photo by Fultz Fotos, used with permission

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There’s a revolution that needs to happen and it starts from inside each one of us. We need to wake up and fall in love with Earth. Our love and admiration for the Earth has the power to unite us and remove all boundaries, separation and discrimination. We need to re-establish true communication–true communion–with ourselves, with the Earth, and with one another as children of the same mother.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Tree People of Central Park, photo by Devadana Sanctuary

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One of the most important contributions of the ecological movement is that it has made us conscious of the interdependence of all forms of life, the delicate web of creation…Nor do we realize the degree to which our intention, our attitude, our individual participation can affect the life of the whole and the way the future will unfold.

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Photo courtesy of Sandy’s NW Hiking Photos, used with permission

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I didn’t know what to think, but what I felt was magnetic and so big it ached like the moon had entered my chest and filled it up. The only thing I could compare it to was the feeling I got one time when I walked from the peach stand and saw the sun spreading across the late afternoon, setting the top of the orchard on fire while darkness collected underneath. Silence had hovered over my head, beauty multiplying in the air, the trees so transparent I felt like I could see through to something pure inside them. My chest ached then, too, this very same way.

~ Sue Monk Kidd, “The Secret Life of Bees”

Sunset from the island of Naxos – photo by Martha Paradis

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I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars….I awaken everything to life.

~ Hildegard of Bingen

Mt. Rainier National Park Sunrise – photo by Mirwais Azami Photography, used with permission

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A Buddhist blessing for food:

We receive this food in gratitude to all beings
Who have helped to bring it to our table,
And vow to respond in turn to those in need
With wisdom and compassion.

Emerald Pool, Elves Chasm, Grand Canyon – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission

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May the sun bring you new energy by day,
may the moon softly restore you by night,
may the rain wash away your worries,
may the breeze blow new strength into your being,
may you walk gently through the world and
know it’s beauty all the days of your life.

~ Apache Blessing

Full Moon Rise Over Yuccas, White Sands National Monument, NM – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission

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The forest is not merely an expression or representation of sacredness, nor a place to invoke the sacred; the forest is sacredness itself…Whoever moves within the forest can partake directly of sacredness, experience sacredness with his entire body, breath sacredness and contain it within himself, drink the sacred water as a living communion, bury his feet in sacredness, open his eyes and witness the burning beauty of sacredness.

~ Richard Nelson

Photo courtesy of Pedro Terrinha, used with permission

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I’m taking off on my own two feet. I’m going to clear my head…to listen to trees and silence, to see if I can still breathe…
I’m going to be alone with myself, to feel how it feels to embrace what my feet tell my head, what wind says in my good ear.

~ Philip Booth

Steep Creek Falls, Skamania County, Gifford Pinchot National Forest – photo by Sandy’s NW Hiking Photos, used with permission

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The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. Man can no longer live his life for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe.

~ Albert Schweitzer

Silver Star Mountain Trail – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission

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The “sacred” is not something primarily religious or even spiritual. It is not a quality we need to learn or to develop. It belongs to the primary nature of all that is. When our ancestors knew that everything they could see was sacred, this was not something taught but instinctively known. It was as natural as sunlight, as necessary as breathing. We all have within us a sense of the sacred, a sense of reverence, however we may articulate it. It is a part of our human DNA. We each need to find this key within us. What does it mean for something to be sacred, what feeling does this evoke? How do we recognize the quality of the sacred, and how do we then respond?

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Sunrise at Queen’s Bath, Hawaii – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission

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We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable energy for life.

~ Tom Brown, Jr., Tracker

Rufous Hummingbird – photo by TAO Photography used with permission

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