If there is any wisdom running through my life now, in my walking on this earth, it came from listening in the Great Silence to the stones, trees, space, the wild animals, to the pulse of all life as my heartbeat.
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There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious unity and integrity is wisdom, the mother of us all, “natura naturans.” There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness, and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being.
The true light is a gentle love which, rising in you, causes you to look on the world with understanding and compassion and respect. When you respect the souls of your brother and sister, you respect their lives in every way. This gentle spirit, this respect one for another, must come. For this is the generation of the one true light, and this true light is that of love.
~ White Eagle
Summer Meadow at Sunrise - photo by Yanika, bigstockphoto.com
We are not here on Earth to be alone, but to be a part of a living community, a web of life in which all is sacred. Like the cells of our body, all of life is in constant communication, as science is just beginning to understand. No bird sings in isolation, no bud breaks open alone. And the most central note that is present in life is its sacred nature, something we need to each rediscover and honor anew. Today's world may still at times make us feel lonely, but we can then remember what every animal, every insect, every plant knows and only we have forgotten: the living sacred whole.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Bryce Canyon through Pine Branches - photo by baluzek, bigstockphoto.com
Our duty is wakefulness, the fundamental condition of life itself. The unseen, the unheard, the untouchable is what weaves the fabric of our see-able universe together.
~ Robin Craig Clark
Stairway to Erawan National Park, Thailand - photo by lkuni, bigstockphoto.com
You may not be able to change the entire world, but you can release your love, and watch its vibrant colors paint the world around you with kindness and patience, and watch your little part of it change for the better.
~ Mona Lisa Nyman
White Cosmos - photo by Trusjom, bigstockphoto.com
The word “intuition” is used to connote is a Self-state in which the individual is available to receive and realize wise guidance for use in solving problems and coping with life.
~ Bette Freedson
Raindrops on Leaf - photo by Mihalo K, bigstockphoto.com
In our quest for happiness and the avoidance of suffering, we are all fundamentally the same, and therefore equal. Despite the characteristics that differentiate us—race, language, religion, gender, wealth and many others—we are all equal in terms of our basic humanity.
~ Dalai Lama
Sun Over the Ocean - photo by Lynne Williamson, bigstockphoto.com
We all have encounters with the sacred, we just have to cultivate the eye that can perceive them. We have to see what’s already here, interwoven with what we claim is human and mundane. We have to take inventory of the magic that conspires to love us in and through our ordinary lives.
~ Meggan Watterson
Deep Tropical Jungle, Southeast Asia - photo by Quickshooting, bigstockphoto.com
May the energy emanating
from every step I take
re-sanctify the Earth.
May the energy emanating
from every breath I take
re-sanctify the Earth.
May the energy emanating
from every action I take
re-sanctify the Earth.
May the energy emanating
from every thought, action,
word and deed of all humanity
re-sanctify the Earth.
And so, by this exchange
of blessings may grow,
in symbiosis,
the consciousness of Oneness.
~ Ann Palmer
Earth - photo from NASA PIA18033~orig.jpg
You may consider yourself an individual but, as a cell biologist, I can tell you that you are in truth a cooperative community of approximately fifty trillion single-celled citizens.
~ Bruce Lipton
White Cosmos Flowers - photo by Kowit Sitthi, bigstockphoto.com
Whatever we give our attention to flourishes.
~ Rupert Spira
Moonrise Inside Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, UT - photo by HS Digital, bigstockphoto.com
We don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of nows, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
~ Howard Zinn
Sunrise, Mesa Red Rock, Monument Valley, AZ - photo by wisanuboonrawd, bigstockphoto.com
The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is sacred and that we are united with all life that is in nature.
~ Albert Schweitzer
Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia - photo by Tallem, bigstockphoto.com
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.
~ Max Planck
Pholiota in the Woods - photo by Dmitry Maslov, bigstockphoto.com
The most straightforward advice on awakening enlightened mind is this: practice not causing harm to anyone – yourself or others – and every day, do what you can to be helpful.
~ Pema Chödrön
Sunset in Central Park - photo by johnanderson, bigstockphoto.com
The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Oxbow Bend, Grand Teton National Park, WY - photo by Steve Byland, bigstockphoto.com
Becoming a person of the plants is not a learning process, it is a remembering process. Somewhere in our ancestral line, there was someone that lived deeply connected to the Earth, the Elements, the Sun, Moon and Stars. That ancestor lives inside our DNA, dormant, unexpressed, waiting to be remembered and brought back to life to show us the true nature of our indigenous soul.
~ Sajah Popham
Oak Creek, Cathedral Rock, Sedona, AZ - photo by diomedes66, bigstockphoto.com
You have been chosen to be who you are. Not as an accident. Not as an existence without purpose. But as a self-aware soul brought to life by a Spirit who knows your name. You have a mission to carry out, a message to send, a blessing to bestow. You are the only one who can live your life. You are entrusted with a corner of the universe. You are a stakeholder in creation, selected for a task only you can complete.
~ Steven Charleston
Tropical Sunrise, Phuket, Thailand - photo by Panya Kuanun, bigstockphoto.com
Personal Transformation is the greatest offering we can make to the world, for each awakening ignites humanity’s collective consciousness. Because consciousness is one, change yourself and you change the world.
~ John C. Robinson
Waterfall, Costa Rican Rainforest - photo by Achrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com
Somewhere out there, in the darkness, in the distance, someone is playing music. I can just hear it. The sound slips through the noise of the world, the tumult of the world, to find me listening. It is the music of grateful hearts, of lives restored to wholeness, of hope fulfilled and justice, at last, realized. Listen. Even in the turmoil, listen. It is the music of our redemption, the first sound of creation.
~ Steven Charleston
Adriatic Sea Pine Forest, Croatia - photo by AnnaElizabeth photography, bigstockphoto.com
When a bird sings its sacred songs, it casts medicine all around the earth to the hard to reach places. When we drum and sing our songs, the same thing happens. The power of the heart is the most powerful medicine we have. When you think about it, it’s the only thing that can save everything: Because it is everything.
~ Isaac Murdoch
Male Flame Tanager, Costa Rica - photo by Mark Caunt Photography, bigstockphoto.com
This is what kindness does – it points us to what is really important, to what really matters, and to what is meaningful. It brings us home to the love that we already are.
~ Amanda Gilbert
Sunset, Monument Valley - photo by vent du sud, bigstockphoto.com
And that is just the point . . .
how the world, moist and beautiful,
calls to each of us to make a new and
serious response. That's the big question,
the one the world throws at you every morning.
"Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”
~ Mary Oliver
Mountain in Thailand - photo by Fahroni, bigstockphoto.com
May I be loving, open, and aware in this moment; If I cannot be loving, open, and aware in this moment, may I be kind; If I cannot be kind, may I be nonjudgmental; If I cannot be nonjudgmental, may I not cause harm; If I cannot not cause harm, may I cause the least harm.
~ Larry Yang
Blooming European Barberry Berberis - photo by ArgenLant, bigstockphoto.com
…sacredness is inherent in the very essence of life and the multiple patterns of its arising. Sacredness is the radiant expansion of the heart, the devotion to life that rises in contemplation of the inexhaustible mystery that is unity in diversity, the One manifesting through the whole of creation.
~ Eleanor O’Hanlon
Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia - photo by flocu, bigstockphoto.com
There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves.
~ John O’Donohue
Yangshuo, Guilin, China - photo by kenny001, bigstockphoto.com
When we form heart-centered beliefs within our bodies, in the language of physics we're creating the electrical and magnetic expression of them as waves of energy, which aren't confined to our hearts or limited by the physical barrier of our skin and bones. So clearly we're speaking to the world around us in each moment of every day through a language that has no words: the belief-waves of our hearts.
~ Gregg Braden
White Lotus - photo by Pixel B, bigstockphoto.com
The earth community, the Life Community, is not the property of any one religion or group or part of the world; it is the Commons that embraces us all, our planetary home. And it needs us as never before. It calls to us to become, not heroes but community builders, builders of home, gatherers and embracers, bearers of hospitality, keepers of the shared space that nurtures us all. It calls us not to go forth and come back laden with honors but to honor where we are, who we are, and from that place to reach out to connect to and honor each other in the community of life.
~ David Spangler
Wildflowers, Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska - photo by snyfer, bigstockphoto.com
…my being partakes of your being and that of all beings. This goes beyond interdependency—our very existence is relational…therefore, what we do to another, we do to ourselves.
~ Charles Eisenstein
Red Poppy - photo by Yuriy Bartenev, bigstockphoto.com
They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.
~ Hermann Hesse
Smoky Mountain Stream - photo by ehrlif, bigstockphoto.com
As in the unfolding of any sacred mystery,
there is no telling what may happen next
but there is faith that whatever it is
it will unfold with authenticity and integrity,
and whatever happens will deepen the journey.
~ Bill Plotkin
Garden of the Gods, CO - photo by Baiterek_Media, bigstockphoto.com
Few people today, when they’re cycling past a stand of oaks, sense that those trees are sensing them; we don’t feel the breeze gusting around us as a sensitive and sentient presence, and upon arriving at our place of work and settling down to the day’s tasks, we don’t concern ourselves that the chairs we sit in register our presence, or that the walls of the room are affected by our actions.
~ David Abram
Adriatic Sea, Dalmatia, Croatia - photo by AnnaElizabeth photography, bigstockphoto.com
I like to experience the universe as one harmonious whole. Every cell has life. Matter, too, has life; it is energy solidified. The tree outside is life… The whole of nature is life… The basic laws of the universe are simple, but because our senses are limited, we can’t grasp them. There is a pattern in creation.
~ Albert Einstein
Spring Tulips - photo by sun ok, bigstockphoto.com
Anything that is considered spiritual or metaphysical is generally just the physics that we do not yet understand.
~ Nassim Haramein
Mysterious Forest, New Zealand - photo by DmitryP, bigstockphoto.com
You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.
~ Cheryl Strayed
Volcano Agung, Bali - photo by BaliPhotos, bigstockphoto.com
This world, in which we are born and take our being, is alive. It is not our supply house and sewer; it is our larger body. The intelligence that evolved us from stardust and interconnects us with all beings is sufficient for the healing of our Earth community, if we but align with that purpose. We are as intrinsic to our living world as the rivers and trees, woven of the same intricate flows of matter/energy and mind.
~ Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
Geyser, Yellowstone National Park - photo by Virrage Images, bigstockphoto.com
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the Universe and all its powers, and that at the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
~ Black Elk
Sunset, Retezat National Park, Romania - photo by Mikadun, bigstockphoto.com
Gratitude is like breathing in – letting ourselves be touched by the goodness in others and in our world. Generosity is like breathing out – sensing our mutual belonging and offering our care.
~ Tara Brach
Lotus Flowers - photo by photirung, bigstockphoto.com
Fungi made the world as we know it. As some of the first life forms on the planet, they consumed minerals locked in rocks, creating what we now know as soil. Without them, there would be no plants on land, and therefore, no animals. No us.
~ New York Times, “Unearthing the Secret Superpowers of Fungus”
Reshi Mushrooms, Borneo - photo by M51, bigstockphoto.com
Earth is not a platform for human life. It’s a living being. We’re not on it but a part of it. Its health is our health.
~ Thomas Moore
Sopoaga Falls, Samoa - photo by Misa Mazurkova, bigstockphoto.com
With a cosmology of a living universe, a shining miracle exists everywhere. There are no empty places in the world. Everywhere there is life, both visible and invisible. All of reality is infused with a vital presence and this creates a profound relatedness among all things.
~ Duane Elgin
Seascape, Norway - photo by Taiga, bigstockphoto.com
There is a world behind this world. The old cultures used to be in constant conversation with it through the sacred practices of storytelling, dreaming, ceremony, and song. They invited the Otherworld to visit them, to transmit its wisdom to them, so that they might be guided by an ancient momentum.
~ Toko-pa Turner
Elf Garden, Iceland - photo by Ragnhildur Jonsdottir
Sometimes, if I’m feeling woe is me, or woe is the world, I go outside. I find reason for hope. There are miracles all around us. You see little flowers popping up where it seems so unlikely. You can get so tangled up and so focused on things that surround us every day that you forget that life is a miracle.
~ Sylvia Earle
Flowers in Olive Grove, Sicily - photo by Leonid Tit, bigstockphoto.com
Dr. Beatrice Bruteau asks the right question: "How big is your we?" Can we expand our vision of community beyond our own skin, family, race, tribe, culture, country, and species? Spiritual life is more than what we believe, it also includes how we relate. Who is included in the we and who is not? That is both a spiritual and a political question. How we answer it will likely determine our future.
~ Jim Wallis
Spring Blossoms - photo by Kateryna Ovcharenko, bigstockphoto.com
The whole of planet earth is a sacred site.
All people are the chosen people,
and the purpose of our lives is a spiritual one.
May we care for each other, and the earth,
for everything relates to everything else.
Feeling this oneness, may we radiate the light
of love and kindness that all may live in unity
and peace.
~ Radha Sahar
Sunset, Mt. Tibrogargan, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia - photo by Martin Valigursky, bigstockphoto.com
We should never underestimate the power of kindness to positively affect our world. Simple kindness is a powerful spiritual force. If we had more of it in the world, we could transform society into a manifestation of compassion, and that would truly be a blessing!
~ David Spangler
Cosmos Flowers - photo by kamill, bigstockphoto.com
Seeing beyond our filters—our accumulated knowledge and beliefs—does not always come naturally. We have spent years growing attached to them in various degrees, and they feel safe. Whatever we become attached to can begin to shape our future experiences and limit our perception of what exists outside our vocabulary. Like blinders on a horse, our attached beliefs limit our vision, and this in turn limits our perceived direction in life. The stronger our level of attachment, the less we can see.
~ don Miguel Ruiz Jr
False Kiva and Milky Way, Canyonlands National Park, UT - photo by Kris Wiktor, bigstockphoto.com
Love is the real power. It's the energy that cherishes. The more you work with that energy, the more you will see how people respond naturally to it, and the more you will want to use it. It brings out your creativity, and helps everyone around you flower. Your children, the people you work with—everyone blooms.
~ Marion Woodman
Tree Above Black Sea at Sunset - photo by Mr. Smith, bigstockphoto.com
The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Lotus - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
Everything around you is alive: believe it. Tell stories to stones, sing to trees, start conversations with birds. Build relationships. You’ll never be lonely again.
~ Sharon Blackie
Sunrise, Hunts Mesa, Monument Valley, AZ - photo by Bill45, bigstockphoto.com
Over the centuries, human beings have come to care more about collecting material things than supporting Nature’s gifts, people and living creations. There has been a loss of our sense of the Sacredness of Life…We’ve placed more emphasis on wanting, getting, measuring and comparing than on living, loving, learning and being. What we’ve forgotten is that every life is precious and unique. Every day, every moment. Every forest, meadow and stream, every tree, child, river and lake, is a sacred gift from the Universe.
~ Christopher Chase
Deep Montana Forest - photo by Virrage Images, bigstockphoto.com
We are living in a world that is in the late stage of a Caterpillar. It is very important to let go of the old and start to gravitate to the new because we are leaving behind a world that is no longer sustainable and moving into a world in which we can thrive.
~ Bruce Lipton
Peacock Eye Butterfly - photo by Elkov, bigstockphoto.com
When we know nature as the mother’s body and everything in nature as utterly sacred then, and then only, will we do everything in our power to preserve, honor and protect nature.
~ Andrew Harvey
Bucegi Mountains, Carpathians, Romania - photo by Project-Photo, bigstockphoto.com
You might want to practice stopping and looking throughout the day, even if only for a few moments. It's remarkable what we can see when we stop and turn the light of awareness on the things we take for granted.
~ John Brehm
Early Spring, Kawaguchi Lake, Japan at Mt. Fuji -photo by SeanPavonePhoto, bigstockphoto.com
The Universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightning and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees, all these have voices and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related.
~ Thomas Berry
Bright Full Moon and Stars - photo by kdshutterman, bigstockphoto.com
For thousands of years it has been known that everything that exists in this world is alive and has a spirit.
We are connected to a web of life that reflects the impact of the behavior of all that is alive. We can speak to the spirit of the trees, plants, rocks, rivers, animals, birds, insects, and reptiles and perceive their divine nature. As everything that exists is alive, each being also recognizes the divine in us. The earth is alive and is a sacred being. It is time for us to align with the heartbeat of the earth.
~ Sandra Ingerman
Yosemite National Park, CA - photo by jimjab, bigstockphoto.com
Diversity is the nature of evolution. Evolution has worked for billions of years to create biodiversity, cultural diversity, religious diversity, linguistic diversity and truth diversity. But now, in our mistaken view of the world, we are turning this diversity, which we should be celebrating, into divisions. And now we see each other as separate. When you create divisions you have a conflict. Conflict leads to wars, poverty and injustice. If we wish to reduce, or hopefully remove altogether, the possibilities of conflict, wars, poverty, exploitation, then we have to rise above these divisions which we have created in the world and celebrate our diversity.
~ Satish Kumar
Tropical Landscape at Disk, Thailand - photo by smithore, bigstockphoto.com
Consider the other kingdoms.
The trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding titles: oak, aspen, willow. Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north have dozens of words to describe its different arrivals. Red Deer Stag in Foggy Forest - photo by Veneratio, bigstockphoto.comOr the creatures, with their thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their infallible sense of what their lives are meant to be.
Thus the world grows rich, grows wild, and you too, grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too were born to be.
~ Mary Oliver
Red Deer Stag in Foggy Forest - photo by Veneratio, bigstockphoto.com
People who’ve had any genuine spiritual experience always know that they don’t know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a love, which is incomprehensible to the mind.
~ Richard Rohr
Ocean Sunrise - photo by Smileus, bigstockphoto.com
We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
~ Marian Wright Edelman
Water Lilies - photo by Mesori, bigstockphoto.com
Every tree, every plant, has a spirit. People may say that the plant has no mind. I tell them that the plant is alive & conscious. A plant may not talk, but there is a spirit in it that is conscious, that sees everything, which is the soul of the plant, its essence, what makes it alive. The channels through which the water & sap move are the veins of the spirit.
~ Pablo Amaringo
Old Linden Tree, Estonia - photo by Artenex, bigstockphoto.com
Your unity and connection with LIFE and the Universe is a deep spiritual and scientific truth. Reality exists as a beautiful mosaic of interconnection and inter-being. Everything exists in circles of creative interdependence, mutual attraction and sharing.
~ Christopher Chase
Red Rock Cliffs, Zion National Park, UT - photo by eric1513, bigstockphoto.com
...a truly planetary perspective means we see ourselves first and foremost not just as members of the human family but as earthlings in interdependent relationship with all the human and nonhuman members of the Earth community.
~ David Nicol
Hot Springs, Caldeira Velha, Azores, Portugal - photo by Pav-Pro-Photography Ltd.
You have heard of collateral damage. Now hear of collateral renewal. Every time we act in kindness, in mercy, in love: the impact of our actions radiates out to touch many more lives than the ones in our immediate vicinity. Others we do not know will be affected. The reverberations of our compassion will circle the world. Collateral renewal – healing rippling out, never ending.
~ Steven Charleston
Pine Forest Sunrise - photo by valio84sl, bigstockphoto.com
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
Early Cherry Blossoms, NY Central Park - photo by Devadana Sanctuary
Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you'd think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.
~ Lewis Thomas
Black Lava Rock Shoreline, Hawaii - photo by Steven Gaertner, bigstockphoto.com
The spirit of a time is an incredibly subtle, yet hugely powerful force. And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals together. Therefore, the way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world. In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.
~ John O’Donohue
Lotus Blossom - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence. To understand the true nature of the universe, one must think it terms of energy, frequency and vibration.
~ Nikola Tesla
Desert Sunset, Saguaro Cactus - photo by jasony00, bigstockphoto.com
Participatory consciousness emerges in relationship with an animate world, an ensouled universe with both a past and an unfolding future. Rivers and mountains, galaxies and microbes are physical and psychic presences with their own stories and longings...
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Smoky Mountain Stream - photo by digitalphotonut, bigstockphoto.com
We cannot do the work of transforming the world unless we are in interdependent relationships—the work is too vast and complex for any one of us…Let’s reach toward each other.
~ Akaya Windwood
Sunset, Lake Te Anau, New Zealand - photo by magann, bigstockphoto.com
Quantum science suggests the existence of many possible futures for each moment of our lives. Each future lies in a state of rest until it is awakened by choices made in the present.
~ Gregg Braden
Lotus - photo by Peggy Braun
People often ask me what is the most effective technique for transforming their life. It is a little embarrassing that after years and years of research and experimentation, I have to say that the best answer is—just be a little kinder.
~ Aldous Huxley
Iceland Sunset - photo by Raghildur Jonsdottir
Sacredness is the radiant expansion of the heart, the devotion to life that rises in contemplation of the inexhaustible mystery that is unity in diversity, the One manifesting through the whole of creation.
~ Eleanor O’Hanlon
Spring Daffodils - photo by Devadana Sanctuary
The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members, a heart of grace, and a soul generated by love.
~ Coretta Scott King
Kawaguchi Lake, Japan at Mt Fuji - photo by SeanPavonePhoto, bigstockphoto.com
We like things to manifest right away, and they may not. Many times, we're just planting a seed and we don't know exactly how it is going to come to fruition. It's hard for us to realize that what we see in front of us might not be the end of the story.
~ Sharon Salzberg
Redwood Forest, Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, CA - photo by TNPhoto, bigstockphoto.com
Anything you do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. Anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity, can cause to be set in motion…mend the part of the world that is within your reach.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Plumeria-Fragipani Flowers - photo by KaziytaFahnizeer, bigstockphoto.com
…Gregory Matloff’s ideas are shocking. The veteran physicist at New York City College of Technology recently published a paper arguing that humans may be like the rest of the universe in substance and in spirit. A “proto-consciousness field” could extend through all of space, he argues. Stars may be thinking entities that deliberately control their paths. Put more bluntly, the entire cosmos may be self-aware.
~ Corey S. Powell
Night Sky, Canyonlands National Park, UT - photo by Andriy Maygutyak, bigstockphoto.com
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.
~ Martha Graham
Sunrise, Grand Teton Mountains - photo by haveseen, bigstockphoto.com
Water isn’t just for drinking or washing.
Water has its own spirit.
Water is alive.
Water has memory.
Water knows how you treat it.
You should get to know water, too.
~ Wabinoquay Otsoquaywhan, Anishinaabe Nation
Iguazu Falls - photo by saiko3p, bigstockphoto.com
Over the centuries, human beings have come to care more about collecting material things than supporting Nature’s gifts, people and living creations. There has been a loss of our sense of the Sacredness of Life. We’ve placed more emphasis on wanting, getting, measuring and comparing than on living, loving, learning and being. What we’ve forgotten is that every life is precious and unique. Every day, every moment. Every forest, meadow and stream, every tree, child, river and lake, is a sacred gift from the Universe.
~ Christopher Chase
St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park - photo by kanonsky, bigstockphoto.com
Gratefulness draws on the best of the human spirit in all of us. It renews and refreshes us, and best of all it is contagious.
~ Amy Edelstein
Monument Valley Sunrise - photo by Dean Fikar, bigstockphoto.com
I am grateful for the magic, mystery and majesty of nature – my loyal friend and companion – always there, welcoming and waiting for me to come; to be healed.
~ Tom North
Iceland Sunset - photo by rasica, bigstockphoto.com
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
Green Forest in Misty Morning, Phuket, Thailand - photo by kovalva, bigstockphoto.com
We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.
~ Mary Dunbar
Bohey Dulang Island, Borneo - photo by Zulkiffle Mohd Kassim, bigstockphoto.com
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.
~ Joy Harjo
Egret in Rainforest River - photo by WhitcombeRD, bigstockphoto.com
Just for a moment, drop your opinions. The world will survive without them for a little while. This is a spiritual practice, is it not? Drop your opinions and feel the freedom, the ineffable clarity, the boundless expansion. Do this not just for yourself, but for the whole entangled field of consciousness. Even a moment of inward silence is of great service to humanity.
~ Fred LaMotte
Sun Rays in Deep Forest - photo by Subbotina Anna, bigstockphoto.com
We are undergoing a species level [rite] of passage and it is time to come home into the community of life, not to exert ‘power-over’, but to enable ‘power-with’. We can co-create a world of shared abundance rather than competitive scarcity, but to do so it is time to become mature members of the community of life. We need to redesign the human presence and impact on Earth from being exploitative and degenerative to being regenerative and healing. What’s more, we need to do this within the lifetimes of those alive today.
~ Daniel Christian Wahl
Mountain Lake Sunset, Altai Mountains - photo by PrimePhoto, bigstockphoto.com
If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear, people who can open to the web of life that called us into being, and who can rest in the vitality of that larger body.
~ Joanna Macy
The Kumano Kodo Trail, Sacred Trail in Nachi, Japan - photo by SeanPavonePhoto, bigstockphoto.com
One of the greatest sovereign powers that we all wield as human beings, although often unknowingly or without awareness, is the power of choosing where to place our attention.
~ Paul Levy
Sunrise, Sulu Sea, Pacific Ocean - photo by Eugene Ga, bigstockphoto.com
Consciousness exists in everything, but manifests itself in different ways. The scientific field of neurobiology has been effective in demonstrating consciousness in plants. Plant consciousness is evidenced by the process of bio-communication in plant cells, which means that plants are sentient life forms that feel, know, and are conscious.
~ Paul Lenda
Tropical Jungle - photo by Quickshooting, bigstockphoto.com
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.
~ Rachel Carson
El Capitan, Yosemite Valley - photo by jeffbanke, bigstockphoto.com
May I live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.
~ John O’Donohue
Giant Sequoia - photo by lucky-photographer, bigstockphoto.com
We are a part of the sacred and it is a part of us—it belongs to our real nature. It is only the disconnection of our culture, its fundamental forgetfulness, that has isolated us within our own individual ego self, seemingly separate, struggling, unsupported by this basic energy and power within creation. Once we have learned to walk in a sacred manner, our feet touching the earth, we honor this connection that links our soul to the world soul, our breath to the breath of the spirit, that reveals our individual story as a part of the Earth’s story.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Mountaintop Tree at Evening Time - photo by Sanja22, bigstockphoto.com
It [realization of Oneness] means being constantly open to the possibility that we are like two flowers looking at each other from two different branches of the same tree, so that if we were to go deep enough inside to the trunk, we would realize that we are one. Just being open to this possibility will have a profound effect on your relationships and on your experience of the world.
~ Francis Lucille
Flowering Cherry Tree - photo by Saharosa, bigstockphoto.com
How you love means more than you know. When you reach out into the world in love, you create both a sign and a reality. You let others see what spiritual love can be. You offer a living alternative that others can make their own. Love is more than a sentiment: it is the heartbeat of a lifetime.
~ Steven Charleston
Orchids and Zen Basalt Stones - photo by a_lisa bigstockphoto.com
The sacred is not in heaven or far away. It is all around us, and small human rituals can connect us to its presence. And of course the greatest challenge (and gift) is to see the sacred in each other.
~ Alma Luz Villanueva
Sunrise, Yosemite National Park - photo by haveseen, bigstockphoto.com
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
~ Arundhati Roy
Redwood National Park, CA - photo by pmphoto, bigstockphoto.com
Whenever you have a choice between being right or being kind, be kind. No exceptions. Don’t confuse kindness for weakness.
~ Kevin Kelly
Pink Lotus - photo by Dilok, bigstockphoto.com
The Universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.
~ Stanley Kunitz
Spiderweb with Frost - photo by Yintan, English Wikipedia
Quantum science suggests the existence of many possible futures for each moment of our lives. Each future lies in a state of rest until it is awakened by choices made in the present.
~ Gregg Braden
Sunset, Siquijor, Philippines - photo by smithore, bigstockphoto.com
What is magic? In the deepest sense, magic is an experience. It's the experience of finding oneself alive within a world that is itself alive. It is the experience of contact and communication between oneself and something that is profoundly different from oneself: a swallow, a frog, a spider weaving its web.
~ David Abram
Tropical Glass Frog, Amazon Rain Forest - photo by kikkerdirk, bigstockphoto.com
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the centre of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this centre is really everywhere, it is within each of us.