Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Dragon’s Breath, photo by Chris Williams Exploration Photography, used with permission
Click thumbnail to view larger image.
The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood,
have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence,
that we may well wonder what “the story of the trees” would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.
~ Author Unknown, quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren
Trees of Ft. Tryon Park, photo by Devadana Sanctuary
That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I’m a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.
~ Maya Angelou
Myrtle Creek, Mt. Rainier – Photo by TAO Photography, used with permission
I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. There is not any part of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surfaces of the water.
~ D. H. Lawrence
Central Park – photo by Devadana Sanctuary
Have you ever seen the dawn? Not a dawn groggy with lack of sleep or hectic with mindless obligations and you about to rush off on an early adventure or business, but full of deep silence and absolute clarity of perception? A dawning which you truly observe, degree by degree. It is the most amazing moment of birth. And more than anything it can spur you to action. Have a burning day.
~ Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Dawn Sentinel, photo by Mark Gray, used with permission
And here lies the crux of the matter: to say that nature is personal may mean not so much seeing the world differently as acting differently – or, to state it another way, it may mean interacting with more-than-human others in nature as if those others had a life of their own and then coming to see, through experience, that these others are living, interacting beings.
~ Priscilla Stuckey, “Kissed By A Fox”
Sunset at Ruby Beach – KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
You are not separate from nature. We are all part of the One Life that manifests itself in countless forms throughout the universe, forms that are all completely interconnected.
~ Eckhart Tolle, from Stillness Speaks
Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, WA – photo by Chris Williams Exploration Photography, used with permission
It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you’re desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that’s given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Bandon, OR – photo by Mirwais Azami Photography, used with permission