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A consciousness that looks to the whole is far more expansive and powerful than one caught within the fragmented image of an insular identity…A global consciousness gives us access to a different level of awareness and support. It also demands that we take responsibility for the whole.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Solar Storm, Horseshoe Bay, BC – photo by Marcel Pepin Photography, used with permission
My Beloved is the mountains,
And lovely wooded valleys,
Strange islands,
And resounding rivers,
The whistling of love-stirring breezes.
The tranquil night
At the time of the rising dawn,
Silent music,
Sounding solitude,
The supper that refreshes, and deepens love.
~ John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle
Quinault Rainforest, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
A consciously co-creative relationship with the energy of the planet and the divine that recognizes the oneness inherent in life will open the door to a new era of humanity, with possibilities for our individual and collective life that until now have only been a utopian dream.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Wreck Beach, photo by Marcel Pepin Photography, used with permission
On every stem, on every leaf … and at the root of everything that grew, was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
Photo by TAO Photography, used with permission
False-imagination teaches that such things as light and shade, long and short, black and white are different and are to be discriminated; but they are not independent of each other; they are only different aspects of the same thing, they are terms of relation, not reality. Conditions of existence are not of a mutually exclusive character; in essence things are not two but one.
~ Lankavatara Sutra
Mouse Creek Falls, NC – photo by Jeff Burcher Photography, used with permission
When Earth is truly alive, the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human.
~Priscilla Stuckey
Photo by TAO Photography, used with permission
If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Day’s End, Pfeiffer Beach, Big Sur Coast, CA – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
We do not need to plan or devise a “world of the future”; if we take care of the world of the present, the future will have received full justice from us. A good future is implicit in the soils, forests, grasslands, marshes, deserts, mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans that we have now, and in the good things of human culture that we have now; the only valid “futurology” available to us is to take care of those things. We have no need to contrive and dabble at “the future of the human race”; we have the same pressing need that we have always had – to love, care for, and teach our children.
~ Wendell Berry
Whitney Arch Moonset, photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
I believe that humanity is suffering from a great separation sickness – a real disconnect from nature. My sense is that by understanding animals more deeply, we can begin to heal ourselves.
~ Anna Breytenbach
Elk Herd, Hoh Rainforest – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
The sky was clear – remarkably clear – and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.
~ Thomas Hardy
Mt. Rainier and Milky Way – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
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
Gorge Creek Falls, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
The universe is the supreme manifestation of the sacred. This notion is fundamental to establishing a cosmos, an intelligible manner of understanding the universe or even any part of the universe.. We must remember that it is not only the human world that is held securely in this sacred enfoldment but the entire planet. We need this security, this presence throughout our lives. The sacred is that which evokes the depths of wonder. We may know some things, but really we know only the shadows of things.
~Thomas Berry
New Lone Cypress, Point Lobos State Reserve, CA – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
Alfred North Whitehead once pointed out that when we really understand the biological and physiological functioning of the human body and the behavior of the molecules which constitute it, it becomes impossible to entertain the notion of a discontinuity between the body and its external environment. Living on this mountain, I can’t help but realize that my body is completely integrated with the body of the mountain. Every time I drink the water that spills out of it into the mountain stream, the cells of my body assimilate it. My body is now largely composed of the water that comes from this mountain. We grow our food in the mountain’s soil. The plants start out as a single seed, and, by taking water, light, and minerals from the mountain, eventually manifest themselves as fruits, vegetables, flowers. Thus, we take the mountain into our very being; we consume it. Our septic system even returns our waste to the mountain. How could we feel separate from it?
~ John Daido Loori
Boulder Creek Falls – photo by Mirwais Azami Photography, used with permission
All the principles of heaven and earth are living inside you. Life itself is truth, and this will never change. Everything in heaven and earth breathes. Breath is the thread that ties creation together.
~ Morihei Ueshiba
Weisendanger Falls, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
How strong and good
and sure your earth smells,
and everything that grows there.
Bless us, our land,
and our people.
Bless our forests with mahogany,
wawa and cacao.
Bless our fields
with cassava and peanuts.
Be with us in our countries
and in all of Africa,
And in the whole world.
~ Ashanti prayer – Ghana, Africa
Half Dome Moonrise – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
