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Climate change is not just a technical issue. Everybody’s actions are motivated by their inner life, their moral, spiritual and ethical values. Global agreements will be effective when they are rooted in the individual commitment of people, which arises from their own inner life.
~ Maurice Strong
Zion National Park, photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
When I listen with my heart, I am pierced with an empathic awareness that calls me into action beyond what any amount of learning, reading or mental understanding can prompt
While I am inspired each year by all the brilliant, innovative and effective solutions and strategies at this gathering, they wont be enough to shift our collective course without an accompanying – and radical – change of heart.
~ Nina Simons, Findhorn Fellow and co-founder of Bioneers
North Cascades – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
I can tell you that understanding begins with love and respect. It begins with respect for the Great Spirit. All things – and I mean ALL things – have their own will and their own way and their own purpose; this is what is to be respected.
~ Rolling Thunder
Smith Rock State Park, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
…no matter how complex or affluent, human societies are nothing but subsystems of the biosphere, the Earth’s thin veneer of life, which is ultimately run by bacteria, fungi and green plants.
~ Vaclav Smil
Point Lobos State Reserve, photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission – taken for retreat
The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.
~ Edward Abbey
Moonset, Salt Creek Beach – photo by TAO Photography, used with permission
Thanks for sharing these photos…
…you need insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. With that wisdom you know that it is not a battle between “good guys” and “bad guys,” because the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. With insight into our profound inter-relatedness, you know that actions undertaken with pure intent have repercussions throughout the web of life, beyond what you can measure or discern. By itself, that insight may appear too cool, conceptual, to sustain you and keep you moving, so you need the heat of compassion. Together these two can sustain us as agents of wholesome change. They are gifts for us to claim now in the healing of our world.
~Joanna Macy
Hoar Frost – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
The Earth needs both physical and spiritual attention and awareness, our acts and prayers, our hands and hearts. Life is a self-sustaining organic whole of which we are a part, and once we reconnect with this whole we can find a different way to live – one that is not based upon a need for continual distraction and the illusions of material fulfillment, but rather a way to live that is sustaining for the whole. And this way to live in harmony with all of creation has at its core a remembrance, an awareness, of the sacred nature of creation, which is also our own sacred nature.
Hearing the cry of the Earth we are drawn together from all corners of the world, from different religions and spiritual paths. And in response we bring the single voice of our love for the Earth. May we remember our role as guardians of the Earth, custodian of its sacred ways, and return once again to live in harmony with its natural rhythms and laws.
~ Statement by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee for COP21 Paris Climate Talks 2015
Dawn Moonset, Dead Horse Point State Park, UT – photo by Don Smith Photography, sued with permission
An Iroquois Prayer:
We return thanks to our mother, the Earth,
which sustains us.
We return thanks to the rivers and streams,
which supply us with water.
We return thanks to all herbs,
which furnish medicines for the cure of our diseases.
We return thanks to the moon and stars,
which have given to us their light when the sun was gone.
We return thanks to the sun,
that has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye.
Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit,
in Whom is embodied all goodness,
and Who directs all things for the good of Her children.
El Capitan, Merced River, Yosemite – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
In becoming aware of the spiritual dimension of reality, the shamanic practitioner knows and sees the sacred in everything and experiences the direct knowledge that everything comes from the same divine source – that everything is the Source.
~ Claude Poncelet, The Shaman Within
Full Moon – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
Teach me how to trust
my heart,
my mind,
my intuition,
my inner knowing,
the senses
of my body,
the blessings of my spirit.
Teach me to trust these
things
so that I may enter my
sacred space and love
beyond my fear.
And thus, walk in balance
with the passing
of each glorious sun
~Lakota Prayer
Rimrock Lake – KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
if you take the cutting of a plant from one location and plant it in another, as the neural system of the plant develops in the soil, analyzing its surroundings all the while, it alters, as it learns, the shape and formation of emerging neural net and the plant body it develops.
~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, Plant Intelligence
Coastal Rainforest near Ruby Beach – photo by Chris Williams Exploration Photography
The anthropomorphic gaze is thinning out (Joanna Macy called this the greening of the self), and we are seemingly re-entering a web of life. We can no longer cry: “Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth”. We must as Chinua Achebe reminds us come to terms with our inescapable entanglement with the world, for there is no privileged place to stand in the world.
~ Bayo Akomolafe
Clouds – Yosemite Valley, photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
It is when we look at all life and feel that sacred connection that we begin to change how we live in the world. As a result, it will begin to change how others live in the world.
~ Julia Butterfly Hill
Agua Canyon Sunrise, Bryce Natl Park, UT – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
…Surely it must be seen that those that love and know the land they live upon have a hundred names for snow or twenty different names mud or, at the very least, three different names for the garden robin. In giving something a name, we deepen our relationship with it and in finding many names we find ourselves watching, listening, thinking more deeply about that bird, plant, flower or bug – by engaging through language, we come to know it better.
~ Abbie Simmonds
Osprey – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
Thanks for sharing these photos…
nature is crying out for help. Our land is too important, too fragile, too beloved, and too worshiped to be treated like this. Our hearts beat as one together with the heart of our land; it’s seeking understanding and respect.
~ Tatiana Egorova
Quinault Rainforest, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
