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Clearly, the protection of night, the preservation of darkness, is an important, life-giving dimension of human existence…But most of all, perhaps, darkness returns humanity to humans. It restores the sense of beauty that nourishes the human soul.
~ Sr. Joan Chittister
Tantalus Ridge, Marcel Pepin Photography, used with permission
The call of the wild is a call to the elemental levels of the soul, the places of intuition, kinship, swiftness, fluency and the consolation of the lonesome that is not lonely. Our fear of our own wildness derives in part from our fear of the formless; but the wild is not the formless – it holds immense refinement and, indeed, clarity. The wild has a profound simplicity that carries none of the false burdens of brokenness or self-conflict; it flows naturally as one, elegant and seamless.
~ John O’Donohue
Russian Gulch, photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
…you can remember your relationship with Earth every day of the year. This might sound corny to you, but it has helped me a lot. I believe that if more people would spend just a moment every day being present with the natural world, it would make them more inclined to care for it.
You can connect with Earth each time you go outside. For just one moment, stop rushing, stop thinking, stop the internal dialogue, and see the trees, see the plants, see the sky…
~ Laura Faye Tenenbaum, science communicator at NASA
Palouse Falls – photo by Mirwais Azami Photography, used with permission
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
~ Aldo Leopold
Cedar Creek – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
The world is not a problem to be solved, it’s a living being to be related to, and it is calling to us. It needs our attention, not just of our minds, but also of our hearts. It is our own awakened consciousness that can heal the earth.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
When people go within and connect with themselves, they realize they are connected to the universe and they are connected to all living things.
~Armand Dimele
Taylor River, WA – Photo by Mirwais Azami Photography, used with permission
Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You are just talking.
~ Wangari Maathai
Cedar Tree Base – photo by Northsound Gallery
Nothing is ever at rest wood, iron, water, everything is alive, everything is raging, whirling, whizzing, day and night and night and day, nothing is dead, there is no such thing as death, everything is full of bristling life, tremendous life, even the bones of the crusader that perished before Jerusalem eight centuries ago.
~ Mark Twain, Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes
Milky Way and Mt. Baker – photo by Mirwais Azami Photography used with permission
A river seems a magic thing. A magic, moving, living part of the very earth itself.
~ Laura Gilpin
Upper Dungeness River – photo by KR Backwoods Photography – used with permission
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.
~Albert Einstein
photo by Lars van de Goor, used with permission
Everyone you meet in your life – even total strangers – is already intimately connected to you. The idea that we are all separate and distinct beings is nothing but an illusion. We are all parts of a larger whole, like individual cells in a body.
~ Steve Pavlina
Photo by TAO Photography, used with permission
Accepting our kinship with all life on earth is not only solid science, in my view it’s also a soaring spiritual experience.
~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
Oregon – photo by Mirwais Azami Photography, used with permission
There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unknown, secret place. The old people came literally to love the soil, and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. Their teepees were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The soul was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing.
~ Luther Standing Bear
Photo by Heubi
Every living being is connected intimately, and from this intimacy follows the capacity of identification and as its natural consequences, practice of non-violence… Now is the time to share with all life on our maltreated earth through the deepening identification with life forms and the greater units, the ecosystems, and Gaia, the fabulous, old planet of ours.
~ Arne Naess
Sunrise, Horsetail Falls, Yosemite – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
It is through the heart that a real connection is made, even if we first make it in our feet or hands. Do we really feel our self as a part of this beautiful and suffering planet, do we sense its need? Then this connection comes alive, a living stream that flows from our heart as it embraces all of life. Then every step, every touch, will be a prayer for the Earth, a remembrance of what is sacred.”
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Rimrock Lake – photo by KR Backwoods Photography – used with permission
