We are always part of something, belonging to a greater wholeness. In fact, we always stand deeply connected with the entire world around us…Nothing can thrive in seclusion. We all depend on each other and we are nurtured in the web of connectedness—organically and in consciousness.
~ Soren Hauge
Sunset, Samal Island, Philippines – photo by smithore, bigstockphoto.com
Devadana Sanctuary
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Come near now, saints of every tribe and clan, come closer, drawn by the flame of our prayers, called by the hearts of your family still here on Earth. You know how much we need you. You know how much these coming days mean to us. Come down from all four sacred directions, elders of every nation, come walking on the air, with your shining faces set toward the shadows, casting hope with every glance, reminding us of your presence, showing us the power of what we pray. Come near to us, you host of goodness and mercy, surround us with your love, and hold us up as we walk the blessing way, the path the Spirit has set before us, the tomorrow that waits for us to discover. Lift us up to ride your wings, that we may raise the banner of light, inviting all of your relatives to sing the hymn of hope, to begin a new dance that will not end, to be like you: unafraid and forever believing.
~ Steven Charleston
Navajo Arch, Arches National Park, UT – photo by Andriy Maygutyak, bigstockphoto.com
The ecosophical outlook is developed through an identification so deep that one’s own self is no longer adequately delimited by the personal ego or the organism. One experiences oneself to be a genuine part of all life… We are not outside the rest of nature and therefore cannot do with is as we please without changing ourselves…
~ Arne Naess
Deer Stag in Fall Forest – photo by Veneratio, bigstockphoto.com
As we become more whole and acknowledge the inevitability of our inherent imperfection, our capacity for compassion increases. As it does, a sense of connection with others deepens and expands. Within a context of compassion, we tap into a collective human experience and realize that we are not alone in our suffering. The world becomes populated with people we can relate to, even if we’ve never met them—people whose deepest yearnings for love, comfort, and security aren’t so very different from our own. For this reason, even as the sources of our suffering may differ, depending on our culture and life circumstances, we are alike when it comes to the inevitable fact that we all can be touched by feelings and experiences that cause distress.
~ Nancy Napier, “Sacred Practices for Conscious Living, 2nd Edition”
Autumn Sun and Beech Trees – photo by Smileus, 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
Zion National Park – photo by JuneJ, bigstockphoto.com
May you awaken to the mystery of being hereand enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift and find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and may anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.
~ John O’Donohue
Sunrise at Caswell Bay, Swansea, Wales – photo by Leighton R, bigstockphoto.com
…matter itself tingles with consciousness at the deepest level. It’s there in the cells of every living creature, even in molecules and atoms.
~ From Goodreads website in a review of Christian de Quincey, “Radical Nature: The Soul of Nature”
Autumn Waterfall, Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve, China – photo by Breev Sergey, bigstockphoto.com
Integrity is remembering that as individuals we are indivisible from the whole process in which we are participating — the integral evolution of life and consciousness. Integrity is about embracing the paradox that while most of us live our lives in a state of consciousness that separates subject and objects, self and world, even humanity and nature, there is a deeper ground of being and becoming — a quantum-entangled, implicate order of fundamental interconnectedness and co-creative reciprocity. We are individual nodes of consciousness.
~Daniel Christian Wahl
Sunset, Bali, Indonesia – photo by Dudarev Mikhail, bigstockphoto.com
The way we see the world affects the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity—then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.
~ David Suzuki
Sequoias – photo by PapaBear, bigstockphoto.com
Modern peoples…have mainly forgotten that we live in relationship as brothers and sisters with all the beings and forces of the natural world. Our scientific redefinitions of the “unseen” as the “unreal” have caused us to forget that we are all luminous strands in a giant web of belonging.
~ don Oscar Miro-Quesada
Merced River, Yosemite National Park in Autumn – photo by haveseen, bigstockphoto.com
With a cosmology of a living universe, a shining miracle exists everywhere. There are no empty places in the world. Everywhere there is life, both visible and invisible. All of reality is infused with a vital presence and this creates a profound relatedness among all things.
~ Duane Elgin
Aspen Trees, San Juan National Forest, Colorado – photo by bommarito, bigstockphoto.com
Compassion is a most powerful and intelligent frequency within the love spectrum. As we unconditionally express compassion, it intuitively chooses its own way to administer its care–based on a sensitive attunement to the higher need of the whole. Pure compassion is not tethered to our agendas; it’s free to weave its magic, sometimes visibly yet often unseen, but never wasted as it nurtures all within its radiance. True compassion supports the highest-best outcome, which is not always what our personality would choose or understand.
~ Doc Childre
Sunrise, Huangshan Mountains, China – photo by AlSereb, bigstockphoto.com
I think that responsible living in the biosphere means learning to see other species as beings like us, in that they have intentions, make decisions, and they know what they’re doing. They have points of view.
I think that responsible living in the biosphere means learning to take the interests of other species into consideration and allowing them room to live. And I think it means learning to relate to them and to think through the kinship we have with them…
~ Jeremy Narby
Victoria Crowned Pigeon – photo by wrangel, bigstockphoto.com
If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear, people who can open to the web of life that called us into being, and who can rest in the vitality of that larger body.
~ Joanna Macy
Autumn Morning Sunlight, German Alps – photo by Leonid Tit, bigstockphoto.com
In the parched deserts of postmodernity a blessing can be like the discovery of a fresh well. It would be lovely if we could rediscover our power to bless one another. I believe each of us can bless.
When a blessing is invoked, it changes the atmosphere. Some of the plenitude flows into our hearts from the invisible neighborhood of loving kindness.
In the light and reverence of blessing, a person or situation becomes illuminated in a completely new way. In a dead wall a new window opens, in dense darkness a path starts to glimmer, and into a broken heart healing falls like morning dew.
It is ironic that so often we continue to live like paupers though our inheritance of spirit is so vast. The quiet eternal that dwells in our souls is silent and subtle; in the activity of blessing it emerges to embrace and nurture us.
Let us begin to learn how to bless one another. Whenever you give a blessing, a blessing returns to enfold you.
~ John O’Donohue
Mesa Arch Sunrise – photo by twildlife, bigstockphoto.com
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