The most fundamental law is to recognize that we share the planet with other beings, and that we have a duty to care for our common home.
~ Vandana Shiva
Diablo Lake, North Cascades National Park, WA – photo by Anna Abramskaya, bigstockphoto.com
Devadana Sanctuary
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Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.
~ Maya Angelou
Lotuses – photo by Ange DiBenedetto
In the universe there are things that are known and things that are unknown, and in between there are doors.
~ William Blake
Milky Way Above Mountain Range – photo by paulista, bigstockphoto.com
Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language… It is to say, ‘My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.’
~ Desmond Tutu
Acacia Tree at Sunrise, Amboseli National Park, Kenya – photo by ajn, bigstockphoto.com
The great unspoken tragedy of the present time is that we have forgotten about the spiritual body of the earth. We have forgotten about the inner worlds. We have been censored. We live in a culture that has very, very efficiently told us that the outer physical world is all that exists. And even when we do spiritual practice and we discover our own spiritual self, there is often a blinker that stops us from then saying ‘this spiritual self must be part of the whole and what is the relationship I have to the whole?’ Once we make a relationship with the spiritual intelligence within creation—with the soul of the world—then we begin the groundwork, we begin the deeper healing.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Autumn Tree – photo by Ian 2010, bigstockphoto.com
When they hate, I will love. When they curse, I will bless. When they hurt, I will heal. I am a servant of the light. I am not afraid of darkness. I will carry on with my work as a steward of this Earth and of all her children. When they divide, I will unite. When they rage, I will calm. When they deny, I will affirm. I will simply be who I am: for that is what Spirit created me to be.
~ Steven Charleston
Golden Autumn Leaves – photo by dplett, bigstockphoto.com
The world is not a problem to be solved, it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation, lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Lotus Blossom – photo by Ange DiBenedetto
Many indigenous peoples share the understanding that we are each endowed with a particular gift, a unique ability…It is understood that these gifts have a dual nature, though: a gift is also a responsibility. If the bird’s gift is song, then it has a responsibility to greet the day with music. It is the duty of birds to sing and the rest of us receive the song as a gift.
Asking what is our responsibility is perhaps also to ask, What is our gift? And how shall we use it?
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
oto by mbridger, bigstockphoto.com
There was a time when the distances between our world and those we considered “imaginary” were no further than a bend in the road. Each cavern and hollow tree was a doorway to another world. Humans recognized life in all things. The streams sang and the winds whispered ancient words into the ears of whomever would listen. Every blade of grass and flower had a tale to tell…There was life and purpose in all things and there was loving interaction between the worlds.
~ Ted Andrews
Elf Garden, Iceland – photo by Ragnhildur Jonsdottir
And there, in its grand celestial dance
the sun took a step back,
the leaves lulled themselves to sleep,
and the magnificent glory that is Autumn
was awakened once again.
~ Raphael Franciscus
Autumn in Central Park – photo by Devadana Sanctuary
You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
~ Jane Goodall
Bold Coast Trail – photo by Terésa Stern
We are all one. Only egos, beliefs, and fears separate us.
~ Nikola Tesla
Northern Lights, Alaska – photo by JCB5754, bigstockphoto.com
The Navajo teach their children that every morning when the sun comes up, it’s a brand-new sun. It’s born each morning, it lives for the duration of one day, and in the evening it passes on, never to return again. As soon as the children are old enough to understand, the adults take them out at dawn and they say, ‘The sun has only one day. You must live this day in a good way, so that the sun won’t have wasted precious time.’ Acknowledging the preciousness of each day is a good way to live, a good way to reconnect with our basic joy.
~ Pema Chödrön
Sunrise, Monument Valley – photo by lucky-photographer, bigstockphoto.com
The most subversive thing we can do is love. If we do not like the way things are going, if we would like to see radical change: love is the way to create it. Anger and blame can release emotions of the moment, but they cannot sustain long term change. Only hope can do that. And love gives life hope in abundance. So join the revolution: love extravagantly.
~ Steven Charleston
Lotus – photo by Ange DiBenedetto
I do believe in an everyday sort of magic — the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.
~ Charles de Lint
Pacific Grove, CA – photo by Jen Silacci