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Portal to Multidimensional Living

Devadana Sanctuary

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WORDS OF REVERENCE FOR WATER
All over the world there are human beings who have not separated themselves from the land, the water and all of nature. Indigenous cultures have an unbroken chain that extends back to the time when our ancestors first settled the continent. For thousands of years we have lived here and it remained much as it was in the beginning under our care, we have utilized the knowledge passed down from our ancestors.
Edna Yumtheska, my mother of the Havasupai – the People of the Bluewater told me:
Whenever you come upon Water in it’s natural state, you approach it with respect; you introduce yourself to it. Take time to pay respect to it. For Water gives life, we live inside Water for nine months in our mother’s womb. Then we follow the Water into this world. It is sacred, we depend on Water for the rest of our life. Water is Life.
Water is also a great teacher of humility. There was a time while walking in the desert, that I came upon a small natural basin filled with fresh rain Water. I was told that if I was to take any of this sacred Water I must make a prayer of thanksgiving and offer a sprinkle in the direction of Hopi land, so that there would be a good rainfall for the gardens.
When I knelt at the Water, I was overwhelmed by the realization that there was a Hopi farmer’s corn crop waiting for the rain in order to grow, there is a child in the desert lands of Africa searching for Water mile after mile, who may not even find a drop; there is a little Tibetan boy sucking the Water dripping from a utility pipe to quench his thirst; there are the First Nations people who cannot get their fish to dry or can for winter food because the hydroelectric dams are holding back 80% of the river Waters; so the fish do not come, because 20% of the river Water that is now allowed to flow cannot accommodate the fish. Yes, Water is sacred.
Allow for a moment of gratitude the next time you take a drink of Water. Then, hope will flicker within – hope that allows us to envision a way, a path towards a more compassionate and caring society that heeds the consciousness that Water is Life.
Mona Polacca
Havasupai/Hopi/Tewa Nations, Arizona
International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
Indigenous World Forum on Water and Peace
Co-Secretariat

Opal Creek Wilderness, photo by Sandy’s NW Hiking Photos, used with permission

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The human venture depends absolutely on this quality of awe and reverence and joy in the Earth and all that lives and grows upon the Earth. As soon as we isolate ourselves from these currents of life and from the profound mood that these engender within us, then our basic life-satisfactions are diminished. None of our machine-made products, none of our computer-based achievements can evoke that total commitment to life.

~ Thomas Berry

This morning’s photo is also from KR Backwoods Photography. We include it so that you can have some sense of the size of the trees in the Hoh Rainforest. Look for Kevin, the photographer, standing on the path.

A Walk Among Giants, Hoh Rainforest, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission

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Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness…
Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.

~David Bohm

Staircase Rapids, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission

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Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them.

~ Nikola Tesla

Moonlight, Upper Yosemite Fall and Cassiopeia, Yosemite – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission

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Everything is connected. The wing of the corn beetle affects the direction of the wind, the way the sand drifts, the way the light reflects into the eye of man beholding his reality. All is part of totality, and in this totality man finds his hozro, his way of walking in harmony, with beauty all around him.

~ Tony Hillerman, “The Ghostway”

Hell’s Gate, Death Valley – photo by Don Smith Photograpy, used with permission

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In reality, there is a single integral community of the Earth that includes all its component members whether human or other than human. In this community every being has its own role to fulfill, its own dignity, its own inner spontaneity. Every being has its own voice. Every being declares itself to the entire universe. Every being enters into communion with other beings.

~ Thomas Berry

Bald Eagle at Tongue Point – photo by TAO Photography, used with permission

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If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.

~ John O’Donohue

Sand and Foam, Wai’anapanapa Black Sand Beach, Maui – photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission

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Love contains a consciousness that can help us look away from ourselves and towards the needs of the whole. Love is present everywhere at the same time. This is one of the secrets of love that is hidden from the ordinary consciousness. Our individual experience of love may be determined by the openness of our heart and other criteria, but love itself is not localized. Working with love, we have access to its totality of presence. When our focus is towards the individual self we see only fragments of love, but when we turn away from ourself we can glimpse its vaster dimension. When we work with a heart and mind that are not controlled by self interest, we can have direct access to the ONENESS that is within all of life.

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, from Light of Oneness

Hooker Falls, NC – photo by Jeff Burcher Photography, used with permission

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We do not always know what it is or how to articulate it, but deep inside there is a longing, a longing to live according to a true calling. A calling that comes not from the personality but from a deeper part of ourselves, a part that is connected to a greater whole that, if we recognize, opens a door to a different experience of life. Like a new horizon that opens before us, it offers the possibility that we can see and experience and connect to life in a new way. A way that enables us to participate differently and more deeply, from an awareness of a great and unfolding mysterious whole of which we are a part.

~ Anat Vaughan-Lee, Returning to the Language of Life

Upper Quinault River – KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission

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“…every act we make, every word we speak, every thought we think is not only affected by the other elements in the vast web of being in which all things take part, but also has results so far-reaching that we cannot see or imagine them.”

~ Joanna Macy

Antelope Canyon – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission

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As this era of masculine dominance comes to an end and a feminine understanding of life’s wholeness is included, we are beginning to experience a different world in which physical, mental, and spiritual well-being are interdependent. We see the signs of this in the new age movement. But the new age movement is often limited by its focus on individual well-being. Our real concern is the well-being of the planet and the whole of humanity. Central to this is the understanding that the physical world cannot be healed from a solely physical perspective, but requires a shift to an attitude that contains a multi-dimensional approach.

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Wild Surf, Maui – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission

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This is the Earth, healed again, growing green and blue.
I want you to remember this exactly as it is, and then go and tell the people that if enough of us hold this image in their minds,
we can heal the Earth and make it like it was a long time ago.

~ Grandfather Rolling Thunder, Cherokee Medicine Elder

Creek Above Multnomah Falls – photo by Sandy’s NW Hiking Photos, used with permission

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The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

~ Leo Buscaglia

Sunset, Salt Creek Beach, photo by TAO Photography, used with permission

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