Nature is alive and talking to us. This is not a metaphor.
~ Terrence McKenna
More Summer Lotuses – photo by Ange DiBenedetto
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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
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
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
…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
“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