Click thumbnail to view larger image.
The difficult magic of animistic perception, the utter weirdness and dark wonder that lives in any deeply place-based relation to the earth, is the felt sense of being in contact with wakeful forms of sentience that are richly different from one’s own—the experience of interaction with intelligences that are radically other from one’s own human style of intelligence.
~ David Abram
Adult Male Waterbuck, iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa – photo by bennymarty, bigstockphoto.com
The air that wraps Earth is a single entity, the matrix that holds us all. It is a global commons from which we draw a crucial element of life, sharing as we do molecules that have been breathed in and out of every living thing that has ever breathed on Earth. Molecules that pass through us have passed through brontosaurs, neolithic hunters, Roman emperors, hummingbirds, snails.
~ David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature
Sky Blessings – photo by SkyLynx, bigstockphoto.com
May you recognize in your life the presence,
power, and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone,
that your soul in its brightness and belonging
connects you intimately with the rhythm of
the universe.
May you have respect for your individuality
and difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
that you have a special destiny here,
that behind the façade of your life,
there is something beautiful and eternal happening.
~ John O’Donohue
Lotus – photo by Ange DiBenedetto
As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.
~ Black Elk
El Capitan, Yosemite Valley – photo by jeffblanke, bigstockphoto.com
Be aware of the miracles and wonders which are happening all around you all the time. Life is never dull; it is full to overflowing with the most thrilling things.
~ Eileen Caddy
Gunung ibayak Volcano, Sumatra, Indonesia – photo by Pav-Pro-Photography Ltd, bigstockphoto.com
Lakota Instructions for Living (Passed down from White Buffalo Calf Woman)
Friend do it this way – that is,
whatever you do in life,
do the very best you can
with both your heart and mind.
And if you do it that way,
the Power Of The Universe
will come to your assistance,
if your heart and mind are in Unity.
When one sits in the Hoop Of The People,
one must be responsible because
All of Creation is related.
And the hurt of one is the hurt of all.
And the honor of one is the honor of all.
And whatever we do effects everything in the universe.
If you do it that way – that is,
if you truly join your heart and mind
as One – whatever you ask for,
that’s the Way It’s Going To Be.
~ Passed down from White Buffalo Calf Woman
Garden of the Gods, Colorado – ph0oto by RKimbrow, bigstockphoto.com
In times of turmoil and danger, gratitude helps to steady and ground us. It brings us into presence, and our full presence is perhaps the best offering we can make to our world.
~ Joanna Macy
Sunset, Yosemite Valley – photo by jeffbanke, bigstockphoto.com
One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.
~ Albert Einstein
Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), Chile – photo by Aliaksei Skreidzeleu, bigstockphoto.com
Please join me today, whoever you are, whatever you believe: join me in releasing love into the world. Love as mercy, love as peace, love as forgiveness, love as healing: join me in sharing love in every way that you can. And when you do, join me in believing it will make a difference. Love always makes a difference. Please join me in extending that love as far as your heart can reach.
~ Steven Charleston
Sunrise at Mesa Arch, Canyonlands National Park, UT – photo by prochasson, bigstockphoto.com
In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.
~ Howard Thurman
Swan in morning sunlight – photo by Flynt, bigstockphoto.com
Stand still.
The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.
Where you are is called Here.
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger;
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes.
Listen.
It answers.
I have made this place around you,
And if you leave it
You may come back again
Saying…
“Here.”
No two trees are the same to raven
No two ranches are the same to wren.
If what a tree or branch
Does is lost on you,
Then you are surely lost.
Stand still.
The forest knows where you are.
You must let it find you.
~ David Wagner
Pine Forest in Winter – photo by Boguslavus, bigstockphoto.com
This brainless, single-celled organism [slime mold] may lack brains but compensates with a level of intelligence that continues to stun scientists across the globe. Despite its lack of neurons, it’s capable of complexities like remembering, making decisions, and recognizing itself. The slime mold also has a knack for geometry, as it swiftly mapped Tokyo’s rail system in just 26 hours — a task that took humans a hundred years! “This brainless goo has been known to beg for food, help out a friend, solve a maze better than Harvard grad students and even scheme coordinated escapes.” So, next time you think of intelligence, reconsider preconceived notions, because the slime mold is here to redefine it!
~ Daily Good Weekly Newsletter
Slime Mold,several fruiting bodies of Comatricha nigra – photo by alexis_orion, wikipedia.com
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
~ Marcel Proust
Arch Formation, Bryce Canyon – photo by D.G. Hayes, bigstockphoto.com
The belief that everything in the universe is part of the same fundamental whole exists throughout many cultures and philosophical, religious, spiritual, and scientific traditions, as captured by the phrase ‘all that is.’ The Nobel winner Erwin Schrodinger once observed that quantum physics is compatible with the notion that there is indeed a basic oneness of the universe. Therefore, despite it seeming as though the world is full of many divisions, many people throughout the course of human history and even today truly believe that individual things are part of some fundamental entity.
~ Scott Barry Kaufman
Sunset, Babson Island, Maine – photo by Cynthia Stroud
The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically related to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all the atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.
~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
Starry Sky and Baobab Trees – photo by Mikhail Dudarev, bigstockphoto.com
