Click thumbnail to view larger image.
Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man.
~ Orison Swett Marden
Lithfield Cliffs, Hawaii – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
These years, we wonder, do we belong to the East or the West? Do we want to be socialist or capitalist? These confusions divide us from each other. Now we see what we really are. We are the living Earth.
~ Joanna Macy
Photo by Zastrozzi Dh Photography, used with permission
The Inner History of a Day
We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.
Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.
So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.
~ John ODonohue
Montana, photo by Devadana Sanctuary
To the great tree-loving fraternity we belong. We love trees with universal and unfeigned love, and all things that do grow under them or around them – the whole leaf and root tribe.
~ Henry Ward Beecher
Tree People of Central Park, early morning – photo by Devadana Sanctuary
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
~ Eden Phillpotts
Montana, photo by Devadana Sanctuary
The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!
~ Rumi
Photo by Zastrozzi Dh Photography, used with permission
My words are tied in one with the great mountains,
with the great rocks, with the great trees, in one with my body and heart.
All of you see me, one with this world.
~ Yokuts Prayer
Quinault Rainforest, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
~ Paulo Coelho
Mt. Rainier and Milky Way – photo by Mirwais Azami Photography, used with permission
It is a longing for coming home to the sacredness of our belonging to the living body of earth and the joy of serving that at every step. I make it sound easy but we cant do it alone. Just hearing the news of what is happening each day on the planet, I cant handle all of it alone. Im not supposed to. Even looking at it requires we reach out to each other and take each others arm and I can tell you how I feel, and you will listen. The very steps we need to take bring us the relief and reward of the whole point of it, which is our collective nature, our non-separateness, because this is the only thing that can save us.
~ Joanna Macy
Mt. Rainier Sun – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
It is not just contemporary industrial society that is dysfunctional; it is civilization itself. We humans are born to be creatures of the land and the sea and the stars; we are relations to the animals, cohorts to the plants. Our well being, and the well-being of the very planet depend on our pursuance of our given place within the natural world.
~ Chellis Glendinning
Waterfall – Quinault Rainforest – KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. … Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects.
~ Edward O. Wilson
Photo by Devadana Sanctuary.
Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Super Full Moon – photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
The mind can go in a thousand directions,
but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.
With each step, the wind blows.
With each step, a flower blooms.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Photo by KR Backwoods Photography – used with permission
Earth is not a platform for human life. It’s a living being. We’re not on it but part of it. Its health is our health.
~Thomas Moore
Photo by Zastrozzi Dh Photography, used with permission
It is for each of us to reclaim the connection to the sacred within creation in our way…
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Monument Valley – Photo by Don Smith Photography, used with permission
