The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
~Henry Miller
Flowers, Vancouver, Canada – photo by Marcel Pepin Photography, used with permission
Devadana Sanctuary
Click thumbnail to view larger image.
All forests have their own personality. I don’t just mean the obvious differences, like how an English woodland is different from a Central American rain forest, or comparing tracts of West Coast redwoods to the saguaro forests of the American Southwest… they each have their own gossip, their own sound, their own rustling whispers and smells. A voice speaks up when you enter their acres that can’t be mistaken for one you’d hear anyplace else, a voice true to those particular tress, individual rather than of their species.
~ Charles de Lint
Sequoias – Photo by Devadana Sanctuary
Earth is not a platform for human life.
Its a living being.
Were not on it but part of it.
Its health is our health.
~ Thomas Moore
Yosemite, Photo by Gary Hart Photography, used with permission
I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. There is not any part of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surfaces of the water.
~ D. H. Lawrence
Ruby Beach, Blue Hour – photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
When you recognize the sacredness, the beauty, the incredible stillness and dignity in which a flower or a tree exists, you add something to the flower or the tree. Through your recognition, your awareness, nature too comes to know itself.
~ Eckhart Tolle, from Stillness Speaks
Photo by Zastrozzi Dh Photography – used with permission
Two lessons I have learned from the trees in my life are patience and endurance.
~ Jane Goodall
Trees of Central Park, NYC, photo by Devadana Sanctuary
You need nature as your teacher to help you connect with Being. Not only do you need nature, it needs you.
~ Eckhart Tolle, from Stillness Speaks
Photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
See deeply the beauty and interconnectedness of all life; then think, speak and act from what you see.
~ Maggie Streincrohn Davis
Photo by Zastrozzi Dh Photography, used with permission
We are members of a vast cosmic orchestra, in which each living instrument is essential to the complimentary and harmonious playing of the whole.
~ J. Allen Boone
Cedar Creek, Capitol State Forest, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
Life in all its variety and beauty calls us for a response – a new integrated understanding of who we are as humans. This is not only about stewardship of the Earth but also about embracing our embeddedness in nature in radical, fresh, and enlivening ways. Humans, Earth, and the rest of life are bound in single story and destiny. It is no longer a question of “saving the environment” as if it were something out there apart from us. We humans are the environment, and it is us…
~ Mary Evelyn Tucker
Island at Salt Creek Beach – photo by TAO Photography, used with permission
A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,”
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
~ Albert Einstein
Northern Lights, photo by Marcel Pepin Photography, used with permission
At the deepest level of ecological awareness you are talking about spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness is an understanding of being embedded in a larger whole, a cosmic whole, of belonging to the universe.
~ Fritjof Capra
Photo by Zastrozzi Dh Photography, used with permission
We are all connected to everyone and everything in the universe. Therefore, everything one does as an individual affects the whole. As thoughts, words, images prayers, blessings, and deeds are listened to by all that is.
~ Serge Kahili King
Ruby Beach, photo by KR Backwoods Photography, used with permission
I am of the family of the universe and with all of us together I do not fear being alone. I can reach out and touch a rock or a hand or dip my feet in water. Always there is some body close by, and when I speak I am answered by a plane’s roar or the bird’s whistling or the voices of others in conversation far apart from me. When I lie down to sleep, I am in the company of the dark and the stars.
Breathe to me, sheep in the meadow. Sun and moon, my father and my father’s brother, kiss me on the brow with your light. My sister, earth, holds me up to be kissed. Sun and moon, I smile at you both and spread my arms in affection and lay myself down at full length for the earth to know i love it too and I am never to be separated from it. In no way shall death part us.
~ David Ignatow
Myrtle Creek, Mt. Rainier – Photo by TAO Photography, used with permission
How can we fret and stew under the calm gaze of ancient Tao? The salt of the sea is in our blood; the calcium of the rocks is in our bones; the genes of ten thousand generations of stalwart progenitors are in our cells. The sun shines and we smile. The winds rage and we bend before them. The blossoms open and we rejoice. Earth is our long home.
~ Stewart W. Holmes
Photo by Marcel Pepin Photography, used with permission
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 258
- 259
- 260
- 261
- 262
- …
- 300
- Next Page »