...when we place our emphasis and consciousness on the soul of the world, we’re embracing the world as something sacred, as something that has its own essence, its own purpose and destiny that might very well be different, bigger, and more mysterious than anything we suspect or anything we could understand.
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Moon Valley in Atacama Desert, Chile at Sunset - photo by Breev Sergey, 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 for 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.
~ Teach Only Love, Facebook
Sunrise - photo by wittybear, bigstockphoto.com
I pray to the birds. I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day—the invocations and benedictions of Earth. I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Cardinal - photo by Steve Byland, bigstockphoto.com
If we embrace the sacred within all of life, we will find that life will speak to us as it spoke to our ancestors. A veil will be lifted and this innate knowing will be present again. This is the ancient wisdom of the Earth itself, the Earth which has evolved and changed over millennia, whose wisdom we desperately need at this present time if we are to avoid an even greater ecological disaster.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Forest Stream, Mt. Field National Park, Tasmania - photo by Neale Cousland, bigstockphoto.com
We are all needed, more than we know. We are needed to fulfill the purpose Spirit had for us at the moment of our awakening into the world. We are needed to share our love and vision. We are needed to help others walking with us. I am needed. You are needed. We are all needed. Just as we are.
~ Steven Charleston
Blossoming Dahlia - photo by kip02, bigstockphoto.com
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama
Sunrise, Phu Dradueng National Park, Thailand - photo by Boysloso, bigstockphoto.com
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
~ Leo Bascaglia
More Lotus Beauty - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
When I look into the eyes of an animal, I do not see an animal. I see a living being. I see a friend. I feel a soul.
~ A.D. Williams
Greater Egret - photo by tornado98, bigstockphoto.com
Our goal should be to live in radical amazement, [to] get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park, CA - photo by neillang, bigstockphoto.com
Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.
~ Mary Oliver
Aura Reflections on Stokksnes with Vestrahorn Mountains, Iceland - photo by stroop, bigstockphoto.com
Bizarre, isn’t it, that the most intellectual creature — surely, that’s ever lived on the planet — is destroying its only home... I always believe it’s because there’s a disconnect between that clever, clever brain and human heart, love and compassion. I truly believe, only when head and heart work in harmony can we attain our true human potential.
~ Jane Goodall
Asilomar Beach, CA Sunset - photo by Jen Silacci
Every being has its own voice. Every being enters into communion with other beings. This capacity for relatedness, for presence to other beings, for spontaneity in action, is a capacity possessed by every mode of being throughout the entire universe. So too every being has rights to be recognized and revered.
~ Thomas Berry
Fuchsia Flowers - photo by Zanna Pesnina, bigstockphoto.com
It may be that you can see the other side of the river from where you are walking. You know one day you will cross over to explore that country. But first you have a vocation to complete here—distributing as many blessings as you can. Forgiveness and mercy, kindness and compassion, love and healing. You have much to share before you see what life is like across the river.
~ Steven Charleston
Morning River Landscape - photo by Alexey1976, bigstockphoto.com
We have to have a new understanding that Earth and Nature are alive, they are intelligent, they have consciousness and they sustain life. We have to embrace this new paradigm if we want to live in harmony and in reverence of Nature.
~ Satish Kumar
Forest Waterfall - photo by iPangzz, bigstockphoto.com
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Beautiful Lotus - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe—to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from—is a wonder beyond words.
~ Joanna Macy
Hidden Blossoms - photo by Robbie Ross, bigstockphoto.com
Our way into the future requires new cultural forms more than older ones, but there is at least one thread of the human story that I'm confident will continue, and this is the numinous or visionary calling at the core of the mature human heart.
~ Bill Plotkin
Light in the Depths, Cave in Southern Belize - photo by Kevin Wells Photography, bigstockphoto.com
When we pause, we are able to observe our interdependence—from a harvest taken from the soil by a stranger’s hands to the electrician who keeps the lights and Wi-Fi on. We are surrounded by the abundance we create for each other.
~ Joe Primo
Nature's Beauty - photo by Jen Sillaci
There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen – to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.
That is at the heart of being a good person, the ultimate gift you can give to others and to yourself.
~ David Brooks, How to Know a Person
Zen Garden - photo by SergWSQ, bigstockphoto.com
“To be” is always to “inter-be.” Our body is a community, and the trillions of non-human cells in our body are even more numerous than the human cells.. There are no solitary beings. The whole planet is one giant, living, breathing cell, with all its working parts linked in symbiosis. We do not exist independently. We inter-are. Everything relies on everything else in the cosmos in order to manifest—whether a star, a cloud, a flower, a tree, or you and me.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Iceland Sunset - photo by Raghildur Jonsdottir
I think that responsible living in the biosphere means learning to see other species as beings like us, in that they have intentions, make decisions, and they know what they’re doing. They have points of view.
I think that responsible living in the biosphere means learning to take the interests of other species into consideration and allowing them room to live. And I think it means learning to relate to them and to think through the kinship we have with them...
~ Jeremy Narby
Elephants, Kruger National Park, South Africa - photo by javaman, bigstockphoto.com
Something precious is lost if we rush headlong into the details of life without pausing for a moment, to pay homage to the mystery of life and the gift of another day.
~ Kent Nerburn
Summer Lotus - photio by Ange DiBenedetto
This day has never come before, and it will never come again. Will you greet it with your curiosity? Will you bless it with your attention?
~ Jeff Foster
Quaking Aspen Trees, Gunnison National Forest, Colorado - photo by dndavis, bigstockphoto.com
You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all you experience to the highest advantage of others.
Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone. Nature is a totally efficient, self-regenerating system. If we discover the laws that govern this system and live synergistically within them, sustainability will follow and humankind will be a success.
~ Buckminister Fuller
Mt. Rainier, Washington - photo by Andrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com
If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them and what you do not know, you will fear. What one knows, one destroys.
~ Chief Dan George
Leopard, Kruger National Park, South Africa - photo by bennymarty, bigstockphoto.com
As humans, water makes up seventy percent of our bodies. Water is who we are at our most elemental level. We must learn to respect water, as it is us.
~ J. Michael Read
Ruby Beach, Washington State - photo by Kris Wiktor, bigstockphoto.com
Even with our differences there is a place we're all connected. Each of us can find each other's light. There's so much to be thankful for.
~ Josh Groban
Pink Magenta Sunset, Lake Macquarie, NSW, Australia - photo by sunnypicsoz, bigstockphoto.com
Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Majestic Deer and Forest - photo by Sergei777, bigstockphoto.com
There is a lovely idea in the Celtic tradition that 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
Grand Canyon Sunrise - photo by JCoulter, bigstockphoto.com
Perhaps our “life's purpose” has nothing to do with what job we will find, what new thing we will manifest or attract for ourselves, or what mythical awakening journey we will complete. Perhaps the purpose of our life is to fully live, finally, to touch each here and now moment with our presence and with the gift of our one, wild heart.
And to do whatever we can to help others, to hold them when they are hurting, to listen carefully to their stories and the ways they are attempting to make sense of a world that has gone a bit mad. To speak kind words and not forget the erupting miracle of the other as it appears in front of us. Perhaps this is the most radical gift that we can all give.
~ Matt Licata
Summer Lotus - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
It’s almost impossible to be ‘healthy’ if you define it as a relationship with yourself without acknowledging that you’re part of a larger ‘culture’ including both the human and nonhuman.
~ Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Plant Earth-Kin - photo by Marko Aliaksandr, bigstockphoto.com
“To be” is always to “inter-be.” Our body is a community, and the trillions of non-human cells in our body are even more numerous than the human cells. There are no solitary beings. The whole planet is one giant, living, breathing cell, with all its working parts linked in symbiosis. We do not exist independently. We inter-are. Everything relies on everything else in the cosmos in order to manifest—whether a star, a cloud, a flower, a tree, or you and me.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Rays Breaking through Storm Clouds - photo by Sergei 777, bigstokphoto.com
If we are being the very thing we would like the world to become, we will already be at peace.
~ Adyashanti
More Lotus Beauty - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
In its oldest form, prayer consists simply in speaking to the world, rather than solely about the world...Can we not cry out to the winds, whisper to the river and the deer, offer our tears to a tree, challenge the mountain with our questions? Outrageous as it may seem, such animistic (or participatory) modes of discourse are simply necessary, I believe, if we wish to really enact a respectful relation to these other beings, to remember the wild alterity of the waters, the winds, and the breathing land itself. If, finally, we wish to ensure an ethic of restraint in our human engagements with the more-than-human earth.
~ David Abram
Ocean Sunset - photo by malven, bigstockphoto.com
The ancient human-Earth relationship must be recovered in a new context, in its mystical as well as in its physical functioning. There is need for awareness that the mountains and rivers and all living things, the sky and its sun and moon and clouds all constitute a healing, sustaining sacred presence for humans which they need as much for their psychic integrity as for their physical nourishment…
~ Thomas Berry
Limestone Pillars, Gotland, Sweden - photo by Olga Miltsova, bigstockphoto.com
Leave everything undefined, including yourself. Befriend uncertainty. Fall in love with mystery. Kneel at the altar of Not Knowing. Give your questions time to breathe and the answers will find you.
~ Jeff Foster
Callanish Stones at Sunset, Lewis, Scotland - photo by stroop, bigstockphoto.com
A great change has begun, an axial age in the making. It started some years ago, when we were distracted, not noticing how history was moving around us. Now we sense the shift ~ like deer in the forest alert to every sound. As an indigenous person I would say a great spiritual migration has begun. We will become what we believe.
~ Steven Charleston
Another Gift of the Summer Lotus - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
The universe is always speaking to us...Sending us little messages, causing coincidences and serendipities, reminding us to stop, to look around, to believe in something else, something more.
~ Nancy Thayer
Water Lily - photo by izanoza, bigstockphoto.com
If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another's, that we can be free only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family.
~ Desmond Tutu
African Sunset, Serengeti National Park - photo by LuCaAr, bigstockphoto.com
We cannot forget that our real power is not necessarily to change the world, but to make a world of change to the people we encounter every day.
~ Cory Booker
Peony Blossom - photo by Tomka, bigstockphoto.com
Nature is alive and talking to us. This is not a metaphor.
~ Terrence McKenna
More Summer Lotuses - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
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 center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
~ Black Elk
Monument Valley - photo by fullempty, bigstockphoto.com
Gratefulness is a touchstone, offering us what we need not simply to survive difficult times but to appreciate them for their exquisite complexity, buried blessings, rich opportunities, and deep teachings.
~ Kristi Nelson
Double Rainbow, Glacier National Park - photo by Larry Knupp, bigstockphoto.com
I’ve always been impressed that we are here, surviving, because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien
Sunrise, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile - photo by Mikhail Dudarev, bigstockphoto.com
In Shamanic tradition respect for all spiritual beings that inhabit the earth moves well beyond animal forms. Shamans believe that plants are also sentient and that they can speak to us—they call to us, if we listen. By listening to plants Shamans have intuited the kinds of plant medicine that can heal on mind, body and spirit levels.
~ Naturesheart.org
Green Forest - photo by Yastremska, bigstockphoto.com
The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Summer Lotus - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
Let's keep pouring light into each other, into all things and all situations. At a time where change is all around us and we are not sure what we can do, simply pour light in. Love wins.
~ Earthschool Harmony
Golden Sunrise Over the Sea - photo by vladimircanribb, bigstockphoto.com
An updated worldview is called for that places life as we know it as in, among and inseparable from Earth itself. Humans, for instance, do not live “on” the planet, they are the planet. The terms animate and inanimate no longer serve when we view earth as a living entity. Following on, planetary psychology accepts that earth as a living planet is conscious and accepts the responsibility to investigate just how human and other than human beings share in that one consciousness.
~ David J. Chalmers
Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, Canada - photo by lucky-photographer, bigstockphoto.com
Behind every atom of this world hides an infinite Universe.
~ Rumi
Sunset, Kaanapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii - photo by Bob Colvin
We are all linked by a fabric of unseen connections. This fabric is constantly changing and evolving. This field is directly structured and influenced by our behavior and by our understanding.
~ David Bohm
Iguazu Falls - photo by dabldy, bigstockphoto.com
...when we place our emphasis and consciousness on the soul of the world, we’re embracing the world as something sacred, as something that has its own essence, its own purpose and destiny that might very well be different, bigger, and more mysterious than anything we suspect or anything we could understand.
~ Geneen Marie Haugen
Bialowieza Forest, Poland - photo by Aleksander, bigstockphoto.com
Our quest, our earth walk is to look within to know who we are, to see that we are connected to all things, that there is no separation, only in the mind.
~ Lakota Seer
Arches National Park, Utah - photo by Radomir Rezny, bigstockphoto.com
“You know why trees smell the way they do?“ Murphy asked, looking up from her hammering. "Sap?” Logan guessed. “Chlorophyll?" Murphy shook her head. "Stars. Trees breathe in starlight year after year, and it goes deep into their bones. So when you cut a tree open, you smell a hundred years’ worth of light. Ancient starlight that took millions of years to reach earth. That’s why trees smell so beautiful and old.”
~ Frances O’Roark Dowell
Summer Night Sky and Trees, Crimea - photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
Can we not also speak to these powers [of animals, trees, all aspects of nature], and listen for their replies? Can we not cry out to the winds, whisper to the river and the deer, offer our tears to a tree, challenge the mountain with our questions? Outrageous as it may seem, such animistic (or participatory) modes of discourse are simply necessary, I believe, if we wish to really enact a respectful relation to these other beings, to remember the wild alterity of the waters, the winds, and the breathing land itself. If, finally, we wish to ensure an ethic of restraint in our human engagements with the more-than-human earth.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Giraffe in South Africa. photo by Chris Kruger, bigstockphoto.com
Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.
~ Rumi
Sunrise at Hvitserkur, Iceland - photo by jojjik, 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
Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia - photo by flocu, bigstockphoto.com
Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film.
~ Ansel Adams
Grand Canyon in Summer - photo by fotoping, bigstockphoto.com
We live in a world where everything is connected. We can no longer think in terms of us and them when it comes to the consequences of the way we live. Today it's all about WE.
~ Gregg Braden
One of the WE - Our Beautiful Flower Earth-Kin - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
Gratefulness is a setting of the heart, one that I can choose like a wavelength on the radio.
~ Susan Mazrolle
Sun Rays Breaking Through Storm Clouds - photo by Serge 777, bigstockphoto.com
It’s almost impossible to be ‘healthy’ if you define it as a relationship with yourself without acknowledging that you’re part of a larger ‘culture’ including both the human and nonhuman.
~ Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Green Hermit, Costa Rica- photo by JinHreicek, bigstockphotocom
Our natural state of being is in relationship, a tango, a constant state of one influencing the other. Just as the subatomic particles that compose us cannot be separated from the space and particles surrounding them, so living beings cannot be isolated from each other...By the act of observation and intention, we have the ability to extend a kind of super-radiance to the world.
~ Lynne McTaggart
Upper Antelope Canyon, Arizona - photo by vichie81, bigstockphoto.com
In a real sense all life is inter-related. All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mountain Sunrise - photo by Kotenko, bigstockphoto.com
For some people, opening themselves to compassionate responses initially creates its own kind of pain. When we recognize that all people—actually, all beings—are capable of suffering, our relationship to others changes. As the ripples of compassion move out beyond the circumference of our own suffering or that of our loved ones and friends, we may find it increasingly impossible to ignore the plight of people we've never met…Their situation and their capacity to suffer become piercingly real.
~ Nancy Napier, “Sacred Practices for Conscious Living, 2nd Edition”
Lotus Blossoms - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.
~ Margaret Atwood
Dursey Island, County Cork, Ireland - photo by Bjoern Alberts, bigstockphoto.com
Biologists say that trees are social beings. They can count, learn, and remember. They nurse sick members, warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.
~ The Talking Tree Sisterhood FB Page
Tall Sequoias, Sequoia National Park - photo by travelview, bigstockphoto.com
In the Circle we are all equal. When in the Circle, no one is in front of you. No one is behind you. No one is above you. No one is below you. The Sacred Circle is designed to create unity. On this hoop there is a place for every species, every race, every tree, and every plant. It is this completeness of Life that must be respected in order to bring about health on this planet.
~ Dave Yakima Chief
Monument Valley, AZ - photo by Virrage Images, bigstockphoto.com
Enchantment...has nothing to do with fantasy, or escapism, or magical thinking: it is founded on a vivid sense of belongingness to a rich and many-layered world; a profound and whole-hearted participation in the adventure of life.
~ Sharon Blackie
Icelandic Sunset and Waterfall - photo by rasica, bigstockphoto.com
A hundred years from now, I will no longer walk this Earth,
and my time here will be but a brief memory,
and so I do not have a second to waste feeling angry
when my life here is so precious and fleeting.
And so, for every person who I encounter on my path,
I will whisper to myself: "I wish for this person to be happy."
~ Tahlia Hunter
Lotus Blossom, photo by Ange DiBenedetto
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, water knows you. You should get to know water, too.
~ Wabinoquay Otsoquaykwhan
Mountain Forest River - photo by Ale-ks, bigstockphoto.com
In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.
~ John Fowles
Lush Norwegian Forest - photo by Mr. Smith, bigstockphoto.com
We are sisters and brothers to the wind and rain. The stars in the night sky, the leaves on trees, all birds, flowers, cats, dogs and butterflies are our relations.
~ Christopher Chase
Vibrant Flowers - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
The present urgency is to begin thinking within the context of the whole planet, the integral earth community with all its human and other-than-human components.
~ Thomas Berry
Tropical Islands, Ang Thong National Marine Park, Thailand - photo by Gladkov, bigstockphoto.com
Reciprocity is rooted in the understanding that we are not alone, that the Earth is populated by non-human persons, wise and inventive beings deserving of our respect.
We are surrounded by teachers and mentors who come dressed in foliage, fur, and feathers. There is comfort in their presence and guidance in their lessons.
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Leopard Sleeping in Deep Forest - photo by NejroN Photo, bigstockphoto.com
...May we re-imagine Earth as a living being. Please, may we know once again that Spirit fills the land, that the land is sacred. May we conjure a future in which our relationship with the Earth and her creatures is once again celebrated in stories and honored in ceremonies. May we affectionately attend to the voices of our own inner wildness as we fiercely tend the outer wildness around us to which we belong. That we, that she, might never be lonely again.
~ Betty Lou Chaika
Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada - photo by Andrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com
People who believe that everything is fundamentally one differ in crucial ways from those who do not. In general, those who hold a belief in oneness have a more inclusive identity that reflects their sense of connection with other people, nonhuman animals, and aspects of nature that are all thought to be part of the same "one thing.”
~ Scott Barry Kaufman
Bright Full Moon in Wilderness Area - photo by kdshutterman, bigstockphoto.com
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
Cape Starling, Kruger National Park, South Africa - photo by bennymarty, bigstockphoto.com
Outside my window
Two tall witch elms
Toss their inspired
Green heads in the sun
And lean together
Whispering.
Trees make the world
A proper place.
~ Robert Nye
Forest in Belgium with Buebells - photo by Nik_Sorokin, bigstockphoto.com
May the stars carry your sadness away,
May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,
May hope forever wipe away your tears,
And, above all, may silence make you strong.
~ Chief Dan George
Navajo Arch, Arches National Park, UT - photo by Andriy Maygutyak, bigstockphoto.com
Life is a gift that is given and will be taken. How we choose to spend our time here is our gift to life. It is our way of saying “thank you life” for the gift.
~ Imuetinyan Ugiagbe
Sunrise, Crimea - photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
You are not a passive observer in the cosmos. The entire universe is expressing itself through you at this very minute.
~ Deepak Chopra
Milky Way from Himalayan Mountains, Nepal - photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
That moment of inward breath, that pause and awareness of "how beautiful this is" is a prayer of appreciation, a moment of gratitude in which I behold beauty and am one with it.
~ Jean Shinoda Bolen
Lotus Blossom - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
We are not just a skin-encapsulated ego, a soul encased in flesh. We are each other and we are the world.
~ Charles Eisenstein
Maldives - photo by Czamfir, bigstockphoto.com
Recognizing that plants, for instance, have consciousness, or that their simple presence in our environment has healing effects, reintroduces an element of wonder and mystery back into the experience of the natural world.
~ Sayer Ji
Primeval Green Forest - photo by vsarts, bigstockphoto.com
Each one of us, I believe, is a gift the earth is giving to itself now, a unique gift. … You don’t need to be extraordinary. If the world is to be healed through human effort, 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
Mountain River Sunrise, British Columbia, Canada - photo by TNPhoto, bigstockphoto.com
Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way.
~ John Muir
Red Fox in Forest - photo by fotosebek, bigstockphoto.com
Never underestimate the power of goodness within you. This power of goodness can change or heal your life and the lives of others around you.
~ Anthony Douglas Williams
Upper Antelope Canyon, Navajo Reservation, AZ - photo by vichie81, bigstockphoto.com
I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love.
~ Wendell Berry
Blooming Lotus Flowers - photo by kenny001, bigstockphoto.com
There are also all the subtle realms. For some extraordinary reason, we as a culture have dismissed, forgotten rejected. And yet they belong to all of the different spiritual traditions—the shaman who works with the spirit world, the Tibetan Buddhist who works with deities, devas, and the land, or the Christian monk who prays to angels and icons of the saints, and even the Zen monk immersed in the Void in this realm.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Underwater in the Bahamas - photo by Hannah Govan, bigstockphoto.com
In times of deep darkness, we not only need light — we need to be light for one another.
~ Parker J. Palmer
Bright Summer Sunrise - photo by Pavkovic, bigstockphoto.com
If I tried to share my vision in as short and simple a statement as I can, I would say: trust love. In the end, when all is said and done, it will be love that will get you through. The love of Spirit. The love of the Earth. The love of others. The love we have for what is within us. Trust love. Do everything else you can, in all the ways you can, but keep your heart fixed on a life of love.
~ Steven Charleston
White Orchids - photo from bigstockphoto.com
…we are all energy, radiating our own unique energy signature. Feelings, thoughts and emotions play a vital role, quantum physics helps us see the significance of how we all feel. If all of us are in a peaceful loving state inside, it will no doubt impact the external world around us, and influence how others feel as well.
~ Arjuna Walia
Water Drops on Leaves - photo by Badun, bigstockphoto.com
For most people, we often marvel at the beauty of a sunrise or the magnificence of a full moon, but it is impossible to fathom the magnitude of the universe that surrounds us.
~ Richard H. Baker
Moon over Monument Valley - photo by tobkatrina, bigstockphoto.com
In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.
~ Wangari Maathai
Pink and Purple Fuchsia - photo by Zanna Pesnina, bigstockphoto.com
Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person.
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
Adriatc Sea Coastline, Croatia - photo by ZoomTeam, bigstockphoto.com
The creatures that inhabit this earth, be they human beings or animals, are here to contribute each in its own particular way to the beauty and prosperity of the world.
~ Dalai Lama
East African Crowned Crane - photo by MrWildLife, bigstockphoto.com
Our goal is that everyone has enough. Not more. Not all. But enough, enough for living beings to share, enough for life to thrive. Spirit has given us an Earth where doing that is more than possible. All we need to do is recover from our addiction to privilege. Simple and sustainable: the path forward is broad and inclusive. Let us walk it together.
~ Steven Charleston
Abundant Green in Deep Forest - photo by Photosguide, bigstockphoto.com
Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.
~ Kahlil Gibran
Strawberry Blossom - photo by koldunova, bigstockphoto.com
Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.
~ Maya Angelou
Sunset Light - photo by underworld1, bigstockphoto.com
What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.
~ Elizabeth Lesser
Solo Tree on Hill - photo by Bigc Studio, bigstockphoto.com
I learned in the rainforest that every native species has a role to play in this tapestry of life – they're all interconnected. The loss of one can lead to the loss of another and so on. Every time one species disappears from an area, it's like pulling thread from that tapestry and as you pull more and more threads the tapestry gets weaker and you get ecosystem collapse.
~ Jane Goodall
Tropical Jungle, Nepal - photo by Quickshooting, bigstockphoto.com