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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
El Capitan and the Merced River, Yosemite – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
Mother Earth,
May we learn from your being
to persevere with faith,
to balance with grace
to embrace with love
and give of your bounty.
~ Meenakshi Suri
Wenatchee River – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
Nature is our direct line to inner peace. Though there can be great turmoil in the natural world (floods, earthquakes, the hunting and eating of prey), there are also endless settings of tranquility and beauty. When we steep ourselves in nature, we remember our connection to life itself, pure and simple
~ Louise Diamond
Glowing Hoodoos, Bryce Canyon Natl Park, UT – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves.
~ Hermann Hesse
Big Moon – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
Quoting Baluska, et al, Stephen Buhner reports that, “The new view, by contrast, is that plants are dynamic and highly sensitive organisms capable of a refined recognition of self and non-self and this leads to territorial behavior. This new view considers plants as information-processing organisms with complex communication throughout the individual plant.”
~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, Plant Intelligence
The Tints of Autumn – by Zastrozzi Dh Photography, used with permission
Space is not empty. It is full, a plenum as opposed to a vacuum, and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves. The universe is not separate from this cosmic sea of energy.
~ David Bohm
Sourdough Ridge, Mt. Rainier – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
Once we step into the reality of a holistic consciousness that is truly in “interrelationship” with the whole, we will find our self in a very different world in which everything is interacting with us in a continually dynamic state. Even our consciousness is affecting the physical world. The question then becomes what is our role in this truly interdependent reality? Even our present image of “deep ecology” primarily sees the world through a consciousness of separation – the analytic and rational framework of our education and conditioning. We rarely experience our consciousness merged into the oneness of the world around us, as for example exists with indigenous peoples for whom even the idea of an individual being separate from their environment does not exist.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Grassiane, courtesy of Lars van de Goor Photography Art, used with permission
Our original instructions are to listen to that cloud floating by and the wind blowing by. Thats poetry and prose in English but it is wakahan in Lakota it means to consciously apply mystery to everything everything is alive and has its own consciousness.
~ Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Lakota Elder
Double Rainbow – Yosemite National Park, photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
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
Wenatchee River – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
Some of us are drawn to mountains the way the moon draws the tide. Both the great forests and the mountains live in my bones. They have taught me, humbled me, purified me, and changed me: Mount Fuji, Mount Shasta, Mount Kailas, the Schreckhorn, Kanchenjunga. Mountains are abodes for ancestor and deity. They are places where energy is discovered, made, acquired and spent. Mountains are symbols, as well, of enduring truth and of the human quest for spirit. I was told long ago to spend time with mountains.
~ From The Fruitful Darkness, by Joan Halifax
Olympic National Forest – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
What I mean by the Principle of Oneness is this: That we must learn to realize that theres nothing separate or apart. That everything is part of everything else. That theres nothing above us, or below us, or around us. All is inherent within us.
~Eden Ahbez
Perfection Lake, Enchantments Core, WA – photo by Chris Williams Exploration Photography, used with permission
In this interconnected universe, every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone. We all float on the collective level of consciousness of mankind, so that any increment we add comes back to us. We all add to our common buoyancy by our efforts to benefit life. It is a scientific fact that what is good for you is good for me.
~ Dr. David Hawkins
Stormy Sky and Morning Alpenglow, Court of the Patriarchs, Zion National Park, UT – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.
Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.
~ Edward O. Wilson
Barred Owl – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
The earth is not a problem to be solved. It is a being in distress Remember that the earth is sacred. If you remember this, you will treat it in a sacred way The earth is calling to us. It needs our spiritual attention.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Season’s First Snow, Rainbow Point, Bryce Canyon – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
All of this is sacred and so do not forget! Every dawn as it comes is a holy event, and every day is holy, for the light comes from your Father Wakan Tanka; and also you must always remember that the two-leggeds and all the other peoples who stand upon this earth are sacred and should be treated as such.
~ White Buffalo Calf Woman
Arches National Park, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
