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Our bodies are swarms of aliveness composed of microbes and fungi, metabolically dependent on plants and animals for sustenance and wildly, generatively, entangled with our landscapes and communities.
~ Sophie Strand
Cup Fungi, Tropical Rainforest, Southeast Asia – photo by IamTK, bigstockphoto.com
When love awakens in your life…it is like the dawn breaking in you.
~ John O’Donohue
Sunrise, Phu Kradueng National Park, Thailand – photo by Boysloso, bigstockphoto.com
It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.
~ Paulo Coelho
Deep Tropical Jungle, Southeast Asia – photo by Quickshooting, bigstockphoto.com
To love, my brothers and sisters, does not mean we have to agree. But maybe agreeing to love is the greatest agreement. And the only one that ultimately matters, because it makes a future possible.
~ Bishop Michael B. Curry
Lotus Blossom – photo by kenny001, bigstockphoto.com
In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that’s a whole different thing.
~ Lucille Clifton
Sunset, Megalithic Stone Circle, Isle of Lewis and Hams, Scotland – photo by AnnekaS, bigstockphoto.com
When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines what we come to see. Too often we squander the invitations extended to us because our looking has become repetitive and blind. The mystery and beauty is all around us but we never manage to see it. When the imagination awakens, the inner world illuminates. We begin to glimpse things that no-one speaks about, that the outer world seems to ignore.
~ John O’Donohue
Sunset in Nepal, Himalayan Mountains – photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
In Nature, there is no alienation. Everything belongs.
~ Deng Ming-Dao
In a crystal we have clear evidence of the existence of a formative life principle, and although we cannot understand the life of a crystal, it is nevertheless a living being.
~ Nikola Tesla
Crystal Cluster – photo by Devadana Sanctuary
When you know that trees experience pain and have memories and that tree parents live together with their children, then you can no longer just chop them down and disrupt their lives with large machines.
~ Peter Wohlleben
Autumn Forest – photo by Project-Photo, bigstockphoto.com
In the universe there are things that are known and things that are unknown, and in between there are doors.
~ William Blake
Elf Garden, Iceland – photo by Ragnhildur Jonsdottir
What if there were another system and jurisprudence, based upon the concept that the planet and all of its species have rights — and they have those rights by virtue of their existence as component members of a single Earth community?
~ Thomas Berry
Yosemite National Park in Autumn – photo by haveseen, bigstockphoto.com
No matter how long your journey appears to be, there is never more than this: one step, one breath, one moment—Now.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Autumn Foliage – photo by Macrowildliferst, bigstockphoto.com
we aren’t here to
turn our lives into
a bank vault
we are here to be
a gateless park
oh, my love,
I wasted so many
years before I learned
that
we are not what we take
from this world
we are defined by what we
give back to it
~ john roedel
Jasper National Park, Rocky Mountains, Canada – photo by kavram, bigstockphoto.com
Reciprocity is rooted in the understanding that we are not alone, that the Earth is populated by non-human persons, wise and inventive beings deserving of our respect.
We are surrounded by teachers and mentors who come dressed in foliage, fur, and feathers. There is comfort in their presence and guidance in their lessons.
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Sri Lankan Leopards – photo by sonnydaez, bigstockphoto.com
The word ‘animism’ refers to something so commonplace, so taken for granted in tribal cultures, that most don’t even have a word for it—it is the foundational belief that spirit and matter are one. That all things are imbued with a soul; not just humans and animals, but mountains, thunder, shadows, and even the wind. If we learn to listen to and engage in a dialogue with that diversity of voices, we begin to see how there is a constant dynamism taking place between waking and dreaming, seen and unseen, mundane and holy. Like a tree whose roots are hidden in the rich darkness of the soil, human beings are meant to take our cues from the inner life—not the other way around.
~ Excerpt From Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home by Toko-pa Turner
Sunset Light, Alpen Glow on Teton Mountains – photo by eric1513, bigstockphoto.com
