Rev. Carol Napier
Dorothy Pietracatella
Maxine Stein
Rev. Carolyn Tricomi
About Us
As you explore the thoughts and approaches shared on this site, there are some assumptions and hypotheses inherent in what you’ll find here. It’s my hope that this beginning page will allow you insight into the world view I bring to what you’ll find throughout the site.
I was raised in a home defined by the presence of my maternal grandmother – a Victorian woman who ran our multi-family home as the unquestioned authority on just about everything. She was a clairvoyant who perceived other dimensions of reality, as well as a healer who worked with people who came to our large Hollywood, California home to see her. She was a Theosophist and, I later discovered, a Spiritualist. When I was about 10 years old and decided I didn’t want to go to the local Presbyterian church anymore, she gave me a choice: go back to church or study with her. I chose to study with her, which I did from ages 10 to 16, when she died. The time spent with her shaped my perceptions of, and expectations about, reality.
Even though I have grown beyond the teachings of my childhood, some of the assumptions about reality that I learned as her student are still with me, which comprise the working model of reality reflected by Devadana Sanctuary:
* We live in a world made up of many dimensions of reality
* There are visible and invisible sources of help and inspiration around us all the time
* Help is readily available if we ask for and then allow ourselves to receive it.
In 1978, during meditation, I fell into what I can only call the Void. In the flash of a moment, it became clear to me that everything I had ever believed and experienced, no matter how moving, no matter how vivid, no matter how much love I felt in it or about it, was unreal and impermanent. The beliefs on which I had based my life now appeared as one way to translate an infinite reality that, ultimately, emerged from the Void space and returned to it. It was a thoroughly shattering experience and I felt as though my solid foundation of reality, the world as I had known it, had been yanked out from under me. Even though I have recreated a fluid kind of belief about reality in the years since, there is a part of me that never forgets that what is ultimately real, in my experience, is the Nothing that is the ever-present, all encompassing Void – the paradox that this Nothing holds the infinite potential for all that is and all that will ever be.
For that reason, while Devadana Sanctuary offers a working model to engage in a creative, dynamic relationship with multidimensional reality, we want to avoid offering any kind of belief system. We seek to inspire your own perceptions of reality rather than to suggest what belief system you should hold.
– Nancy Napier
Spirits of the Urban Sacred
On this website, we seek to offer a context within which you may explore your relationship with the presence of the Sacred in all life. We do this through practices, guided meditations, and workshops. For those of us who live in urban settings, it can sometimes be more challenging to access a sense of the presence of the sacred than it is in natural environments.
Here, we share spiritual practices, guided meditations, and teachings that encompass ways to deepen your relationship with the embodied presence of the sacred in all aspects of life, in every context of your daily life: the embodied sacred life in nature, the sacred as it expresses through both visible and invisible realms, and the sacred as it is embodied in everything and everyone you encounter in your everyday activities.
All that we engage in our physical lives–our bodies, trees, rocks, water, all life forms, all physical forms of every kind–are comprised of the same particles that make up buildings, computers, and teacups. Everything you would call an “object” in your daily life is made of the same sacred and physical stuff as you are. Learning to honor the sacred in everything around you deepens a sense of interbeing, interdependence, connection, and oneness as natural aspects of everyday life.
Drawing on processes derived from a number of spiritual approaches, we offer information and support for a dynamic relationship with the sacred that is within and all around you. Through guided meditations, on-line forums, and future workshops, we will explore practical and grounded ways for you to enrich and deepen your experience of the many life forms–both physical and spiritual–with whom you share our planet.
Devadana Sanctuary
Welcome to Devadana Sanctuary, a place where we hope you will find rest, ease and inspiration as part of your spiritual journey. Our goal is to offer not only a forum within which you may share your own inspiring stories, but also where you may receive ideas to nourish your sense of the Sacred in everyday life.
Our main premise is that all life, in whatever form it exists – human/non-human, organic/inorganic, material/non-material – is part of One Life expressing Itself in myriad forms and vibratory frequencies. What appear to be inert objects are comprised of molecules and particles that are of the same living elements as are the molecules and particles of things we generally assume to be “alive”. Also, we hold the possibility that everything in this One Life, which is all that is, is equally pervaded by the One Consciousness that expresses Itself in an infinite array of ways.
In every moment of our daily life, we are in relationship to this Sacred whole of which we are an expression. Engaging everything we encounter as both sacred and conscious brings us into a mindful awareness of our dynamic interconnection and interdependence. This, in turn, inspires us to engage our moment-to-moment experiences more mindfully, respectfully and reverently. When we recognize that everything and everyone we encounter along the way is part of the sacred whole that also includes us, our daily activities take on a richer tone, a more alive essence.
Many people aren’t aware of the subtle realms, and yet we all are affected by the subtle energies around us all the time. Living with the context of a multidimensional world offers an opportunity to pay attention to the quality of energies that touch us as we move through our everyday lives. It also invites us to notice what qualities and energies we radiate into the world within a number of frequencies and “levels”. I use the word “levels” to attempt to describe the fact that frequencies generate, or support, different qualities of being—an infinite variety of qualities of being, expression—of manifestation. This week’s exploration offers an opportunity to pay particular attention to two dynamics. First is to notice how you feel in various situations, to become more aware of the impact on you of the subtle environments you move through every day. The other is to notice the impact of what you send into the world on a daily basis. For example, if you find yourself in a bad mood, or upset about something, notice what the world around you feels like as you radiate the thoughts and feelings that resonate with frequencies of upset or negativity. If you find that the “tone” or “mood” of your environment or your subtle experience doesn’t feel positive or good to you, notice what happens if you shift into an attitude of offering blessings to yourself and to all that you encounter. Pay attention to whatever shifts for you when you enter and/or generate the frequency, the quality of actively offering blessings. There’s no need to do this out loud. It’s more about generating and resonating with the frequency of blessing and then noticing how you feel and how that frequency affects you. If you feel moved to share your experience, please leave your comments. With our collective life so filled with stress these days, each and every offering of blessing contributes one more supportive and positive frequency to the One that we are…
Here's an audio version of the written information below, if you prefer to listen to it. As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice. And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
This week’s exploration focuses on gratitude accompanied by an ever-deepening recognition of the gifts we receive every day from the beings with whom we share this planet. For this exploration, I invite you to remember that everything you eat was once the body of a living being. If that feels morbid to you, please keep in mind that our beautiful planet has organized its physical being to depend on both birth and death of all life forms. Without these dynamic processes, the creativity expressed in nature couldn’t continue to evolve, explore, or express itself in such abundance. Many indigenous cultures automatically include deep gratitude to the beings they hunt and consume, a recognition of the profound gift that the life of the being they hunt offers to their survival and well-being.For this exploration, I invite you to include in your awareness all sources of nourishment, be they animal-based or plant-based. Whatever the source of the food you eat, it came from a life form. How is it to feel into that? For me, it elicits a profound sense of gratitude and connection to the life that lived as the orange, lettuce, or source of protein I take into my body. For me, it makes eating a sacred activity, one of recognition and a deepened sense of connection to my world. Not only does this exploration invite you to be aware of the sacred gift that is the food that you are privileged to take in, but it also underscores the reality of interdependence and relationship you have with everything you encounter throughout the course of your daily activities. Honoring and thanking the gift of food is a way to actively recall and resonate with the presence of the Sacred that pervades and lives in and as everything around you. The invitation here is to deepen your experience of that Sacred presence—it also lives in and as you. If you feel moved to share your experience as you move through this exploration, please post your comments and questions. We’re all in this journey together, and we are all each other’s sources of inspiration and learning.
Here's an audio version of the written information below, if you prefer to listen to it. As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice. And, please remember never to listen to recorded meditations when driving or using machinery.
Over the years, I’ve posted quite a few practices focused on water on my nancynapier.com website—practices that focus on the way that water absorbs and “remembers” the qualities of thought, emotion, and presence that touch it, on the importance of offering blessings to water whenever and wherever we encounter it. The other day, I read the following from a Facebook post by Water Transformations: "Did you know that the thoughts you are thinking are establishing a frequency in the water in your body? If you are thinking loving thoughts, forgiving and compassionate thoughts, your BodyWater is circulating that throughout your body. That is why, when you are feeling good inside and counting your blessings, it seems easier to stay in a good mood. Conversely, if your thoughts are angry, frustrated, or self-critical, it is challenging to shift into happier feelings.” For this week’s exploration, I invite you to act as if this quotation speaks an important truth and then notice how your relationship to water may change, deepen, or in some other way touch you in a meaningful way. Notice what it’s like to relate to water as a living essence that is affected by the quality of your thoughts, feelings, and actions and that whatever touches it remains as part of what it carries as it flows throughout your body, throughout our world. We are in a world of living presence everywhere around us and this exploration is one way to practice becoming increasingly aware of the fact that we constantly interact with consciousness, sentiency, life as we move through our daily activities. In this case, we interact with a sentiency that comprises up to 60% of the human body, and an even higher percentage in some of our organs. If you feel moved to share what you experience as you explore this practice, please be sure to leave a comment. The more we can share with one another, the more support we can all have in learning to live in our multidimensional world as members of a much larger community than we have been taught is present.
Here's an audio version of the written information below, if you prefer to listen to it. As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice. And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
In recent explorations, I’ve invited you to attune to the fact that everything you encounter radiates a particular quality, an essence of being. I’ve also invited you to recognize that everything you encounter is an expression of the same sacred source as you. For this week’s exploration, I invite you to focus more specifically on the individual trees, bushes, plants, rocks, water, buildings, and whatever else you encounter along the way as you move through your daily activities. The emphasis here is to notice that each has a unique quality. For example, let’s say you walk by particular trees on the street you travel to and from work every day. You may already have noticed that each tree, even if they look very much alike, has a distinct quality to it, a unique expression even though its physical form may be very much like the tree right next to it. Also, remember that here at Spirits of the Urban Sacred, we assume that everything has a living spirit connected to it—a nature spirit that inhabits a tree, a spirit of a place—be that a lamppost, a building, a room, a special place in a park or nature, a spirit of a rock or sculpture, etc. The goal here isn’t for you to have to experience the quality of the being directly. Instead, this exploration encourages you to develop a sense of relationship with the living, sentient world around you. Please don’t be concerned if you don’t directly sense the unique qualities of the life around you. Instead, the goal of this exploration is to build in the awareness that everything around you is alive in its own way and that you have a dynamic, active relationship with everything you encounter. You bring something to the relationship and that’s where these explorations offer an opportunity to deepen your sense of the sacred around you, and of your connection within this larger context. As you play with this exploration over the coming week, notice what may shift in the quality of your everyday experience if you develop an ever-deepening sense of relationship with the world around you, and as you recognize that everything you encounter is sentient and filled with its own unique quality and energy expression. We look forward to hearing from you in the comments section, if you feel like sharing what you discovered as you engaged this exploration.
Here's an audio version of the written information below, if you prefer to listen to it. As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice. And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
For this week’s exploration, I invite you to focus on the spirits, the creative embodiments, the archetypes that are all around us in the subtle environment that is part of our multidimensional world. In whatever ways you are most comfortable thinking of the Intelligences that embody particular essences and qualities, notice what it’s like to imagine that there actually are living representatives of expressions that we take for granted. For example, when you draw on compassion, kindness, or assertiveness, what is it like to consider that these qualities are the expressions of embodied presences that inhabit your world? What would change in the quality of your everyday life if you were to imagine that you could meet a problem or challenge with the support of, say, the Spirit of Courage, or the Archetype of Strength? What if these embodiments were available to collaborate with you? Throughout history, humanity has represented these archetypal embodiments in many different ways in every religion and culture. For this exploration, there’s an opportunity to explore the possibility that these images and representations of gods and goddesses, mythical beings, spiritual sources of inspiration and guidance show up so regularly because they actually are living amongst us as part of the subtle dimensions of our world and are available to support us. In the coming week, notice what you experience if you experiment with asking for help or support. An important element of this is not to expect the experience to be logical and, also, to perhaps not feel you’ve gotten a response right away. More than getting results, it’s an exploration of what it’s like to engage the possibility that you are partnered every step of the way and that support and guidance are readily available—even though what you receive may not appear in a logical, familiar, or particularly clear form. There are times when we understand the support we have received only with hindsight, once we are able to look back on something and see more clearly what actually unfolded. After you’ve had some time to engage this exploration, please give us your comments, as we all support one another when we are able to share what worked, and what didn’t—or how we engage these explorations in unique ways.
Here's an audio version of the written information above, if you prefer to listen to it. As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice. And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
Part of the emphasis here at Spirits of the Urban Sacred is to bring the presence of the Sacred more into awareness in everyday life. It’s a matter of paying attention to this aspect of reality and this week’s exploration focuses on a recognition that the essence of the Sacred is in everything you encounter in the course of your daily life. Everything around you is made of the same life force that moves in and through you, even though the physical forms that life force takes can be very different from yours. For example, it might seem strange to consider your smart phone, computer, coffee cup, table, chair as infused and informed with and by the same Sacred essence that infuses and informs your life, but what if that is the case? How would it affect the quality of your everyday life if you acknowledged and honored the Sacred in everything around you, the life present in literally everything you come in contact with as you move through your world? How would you interact with, and treat, everything around you if you were to recognize that it is related to you, that you emerge from, and are part of, the same Sacred life energy and impulse. This becomes an exercise in exploring your experience of oneness, of the inescapable relatedness of everything that exists, and asks you to play with acknowledging and honoring this underlying fact of oneness, that the Sacred is in everything. This doesn't mean you don't have your unique identity. It does mean that there is only one source, the Sacred, and it is in everything. It’s useful to notice any mixed feelings you may have when you consider that a building you enter is made of the same stuff as you, even though it is an entirely different expression of that “stuff”. You might notice that it’s easier to imagine oneness with a tree, a bird, even a rock than it is with objects and human-made structures. The underlying fact is, though, that everything—human-made or not—is comprised of particles that emerge from the same life source that creates your physical presence. When you’ve had a chance to play with this week’s Exploration, please post your comments, as our unique individual experiences can become a source of inspiration and support for one another.
Here's an audio version of the written information above, if you prefer to listen to it. As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice. And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
Every living being constantly radiates its essence, its “energy signature” into the environment in every moment. And, we are no exception. The frequencies with which we resonate as a matter of course determine the quality of energy we radiate into the environment, and this week’s exploration invites you to pay attention to what you send out to the world, as well as to the frequencies with which you generally resonate. The frequencies, qualities, and intentions with which you resonate not only shape your experience, they also align you with subtle beings, some of whom are collaborators, who resonate with those same frequencies.
David Spangler talks about how responsive the subtle realms are to our intentions, so it’s also helpful to remember that your state of mind, where you place your attention, what you choose as your focus of thoughts and feelings not only affect the physical world around you but also shape the subtle energies and realms you encounter along the way.
Notice what arises in your experience when you choose to radiate love, compassion, kindness, or other heart-centered energies into your environment, or what you experience when you resonate with sacred images or sounds. Explore the "tone of you" when you orient to different qualities of being, qualities that you then radiate into your environment.
How you move through the world and your daily experience matters. In every moment, our collective being, our interbeing, as Thich Nhat Hanh would say, is touched and affected by all of us. This doesn’t mean to become concerned about what you contribute simply by being you. Instead, it’s an opportunity to become more mindful of where you focus your attention and, then, what you radiate into your environment as a result of that focus.
Another part of this exploration is to continue to be even more aware of the energies you encounter along the way as you interact with other people, other life forms, other places, as everything radiates its essence into the environment and into our collective consciousness.
When you’ve had a chance to work with this week’s Exploration, please post your experiences so that we can all begin to share the process of discovering what enhances our sense of the sacred in our everyday lives.
Here's an audio version of the written information below, if you prefer to listen to it.
As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice.
And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
Every space you enter has its own, unique “spirit” or quality and a powerful way to enrich your experience of the sacred in urban settings (or anywhere, for that matter) is to develop your ability to attune to the spirit of a place. For this week’s exploration, I invite you to focus on your felt-sense of the spaces and places around you.
There are a couple reasons to develop this practice, if you haven’t already. First, being able to sense the spirit of a place increases your awareness of the “ocean” of energies and qualities that you swim in as you move through your daily life. Being able to sense the qualities around you allows you to have a deeper sense of whether you want to stay or move on. It also offers a way to have a more enlivened relationship with the subtle energies around you.
For this exploration, it’s possible to use many of the “languages of interpretation” that we have available to perceive subtle realities. You might have impressions that come as images, sounds, flickering sensations in your body, words—in any way that allows you to perceive what your body-mind senses about the spirit, the energies, the qualities of a place.
Most of us have had many experiences of entering a space or place and immediately feeling comfortable or immediately feeling uncomfortable. Taking the time to attune to the energies you’ve just entered offers an opportunity to deepen your awareness. And, as always, deepened awareness allows for more choice. Even if you can’t leave a space that makes you uncomfortable, you may have ways to “shield” yourself by focusing on your internal center of gravity, your inherent groundedness, or on the ways you center yourself when you are unsettled or uncomfortable.
When you discover that you feel increasingly comfortable in a space or place, being aware of this offers an opportunity to deepen your relationship with the spirit, the energy, of the place. An enhanced sense of belonging, of connection, is a powerful way to nourish a sense of well-being, even in busy urban contexts.
When you’ve had a chance to work with this week’s Exploration, please post your experiences so that we can all begin to share the process of discovering what enhances our sense of the sacred in our everyday lives.
Here's an audio version of the written information above, if you prefer to listen to it.
As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice.
And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
Over a number of years now, I’ve engaged in practices that help to develop a more heart-centered awareness, a shift from always being in the head/mental brain to the perception and intelligence that lives in the heart. For this week’s exploration, I invite you to play with these two “brains” and to notice the quality of your experience when you focus your awareness in your heart brain rather than your head brain.
One of the shifts many people notice when they perceive from their heart is a more distinct experience of connection with the world around them. For this exploration, notice what happens when you encounter, say, a tree, and perceive it not only through your thoughts about it but also from the perspective of your heart space. In addition, as you encounter the gadgets and “things” that are part of your daily activities, notice how it is to relate to them from your heart awareness, even as you also engage them mentally. Also, as you move among people throughout your day, in whatever ways that arise for you, notice what it’s like to meet them, or perceive them, with your heart awareness. Notice if you feel more related to your world when you experience it through your heart.
One way to support a more heart-centered perception is to take a moment at the beginning of the day to breathe in and out through your heart. You can find practices around this through the HeartMath organization and in other heart-centered options such as Tonglen, which is found in Buddhist practice.
As we touch into in all these Explorations, this is another opportunity to enrich your experience of a larger reality even as you may live in a busy, noisy, and highly populated urban setting.
When you’ve had a chance to work with this week’s Exploration, please post your experiences so that we can all begin to share the process of discovering what enhances our sense of the sacred in our everyday lives.
Here's an audio version of the written information above, if you prefer to listen to it.
As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice.
And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
David Spangler has an exercise that I really like and I’d like to share my adaptation of it for you to explore over the next week. It involves transmitting the essence and energy of love to everything around you. Remember that most of these explorations arise from the assumption that everything we encounter is alive and conscious, in the sense that all are expressions of the One Life that is all that is. Saying that everything is conscious doesn’t mean everything experiences and expresses the same kind of consciousness. Different frequencies and different qualities of essence no doubt generate different kinds of consciousness. The underlying assumption, however, is that there is One Consciousness and that we are all participants in that One.
For this week’s exploration, I invite you to imagine that you are filled up with universal love, an energy and essence that is constantly flowing into and through you and is infinite in its availability. As you approach, say, your favorite chair, imagine that the love energy can flow through you and out your fingertips into your chair. As the energy of love flows from you to your chair, imagine that it fills your chair with the living essence of love and that the chair receives, and is enhanced by, the love you offer to it.
Imagine how it would be if you were to offer love to whatever you encounter in your environment, recalling not only that it has an effect on everything you touch, but also noticing what effect it has on you as you engage this practice.
When you’ve had a chance to play with this a bit, please share your experiences and questions below. As a community, we can offer one another support in bringing alive, enriching, and deepening our experiences of engaging the Spirits of the Urban Sacred.
Here's an audio version of the written information above, if you prefer to listen to it.
As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the practice.
And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
I spend a lot of time on computers and have found that my relationship with them is a dynamic and active one. It took me quite a while to recognize that my computers—both at home and at the office—are true collaborative companions along the way. For example, it dawned on me one day that something other than my conscious awareness was guiding me to resources on the computer. Between my own website’s Weekly Practices postings, the Daily Inspiration postings on the Devadana Sanctuary side of the portal, and other activities that require inspiring input, I realized that I was being guided to sources of materials that I didn’t know existed. This usually happens as I follow certain things that pop up on my computer, either through Facebook or in odd ways I can’t quite explain.
For this week’s exploration of Spirits of the Urban Sacred, I invite you to notice how it is for you when you interact more actively with your gadgets—your computer, smart phone, iPad, or other gadgets that link you to the web—as if they are active collaborators with your intentions. For example, if you need to find something and you’re not sure where to start, ask your gadget for help and then don’t think about your request—just go forward with what you need to do. Later, notice how you eventually got to where you needed to be and play with the possibility that your gadget helped you to find what you needed.
One of the elements of having a more conscious relationship with your gadgets is to remember to greet and thank them, saying “hello” when you encounter them for the first time in the day and then thanking them when you sign off or put them away when it’s time to either go to bed or move on to other non-gadget activities.
With all of these Explorations, one of the elements to include in your awareness is your felt-sense of the process of engaging your gadgets in this way. What happens in your body when you consciously connect with your gadget as a living presence? What thoughts or feelings do you have when you play with opening up to receiving impressions from your gadgets? If you notice doubts, mixed feelings, or tension, bring curiosity to your response and get to know it without intensifying it by adding anything else.
Many of us run into doubt or conflict when we open ourselves to a larger reality, so you may find that it’s part of the process to notice mixed feelings and then allow them to move on through as you return to your intention to more consciously collaborate with, and relate to, your gadgets.
A note here on working with subtle awareness. It’s important allow yourself to be open to fleeting and vague impressions without pushing them away or having to immediately understand them. Over time, if you don’t have one already, you’ll develop your own “vocabulary” of impressions, your own way of translating subtle awareness into a kind of communication you can understand. You may do this differently from anyone else and that’s fine. It’s your own internal language and will develop over time as you explore what comes into your awareness and the outcomes that follow.
When you’ve had a chance to play with this a bit, please share your experiences and questions below. As a community, we can offer one another support in bringing alive, enriching, and deepening our experiences of engaging the Spirits of the Urban Sacred.
Here's an audio version of the written information above, if you prefer to listen to it.
As you listen, please press pause when you need additional time to do take in the information.
And, please remember never to listen to these recordings when driving or using machinery.
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. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Sunset, Pebble Beach, CA - photo by Jen Silacci
In reality there is a single integral community of the Earth that includes all its component members whether human or other than human. In this community every being has its own role to fulfill, its own dignity, its inner spontaneity.
~ Thomas Berry
Jaguar - photo by Anolis, bigstockphoto.com
The kindest people are not born that way, they are made. They are the ones that have experienced so much at the hands of life, they are the ones who have dug themselves out of the dark, who have fought to turn every loss into a lesson. The kindest people do not just exist – they choose to soften where circumstance has tried to harden them, they choose to believe in goodness, because they have seen firsthand why compassion is so necessary. They have seen firsthand why tenderness is so important in this world.
~ Bianca Sparacino
Palo Santo Tree, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador - photo by Terra Tirapelli
I have come to trust that I am part of something so wondrous and mysterious and enormous. It’s not me who is taking care of it. My job is to become in harmony with this and let my love, my voice, my connection, my vision come out of that.
~ Jack Kornfield
Sequoia Forest - photo by volare2004, bigstockphoto.com
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
~ Harriet Tubman
Icelandic Sunset - photo by Ragnhilur Jonsdottir
As Wind carries our prayers for Earth and All Life,
may respect and love light our way.
May our hearts be filled with compassion for others and for ourselves.
May peace increase on Earth.
May it begin with me.
~ Tibetan prayer flag is 'Lung ta', meaning 'Wind Horse'
Cho La Pass, Nepal, Himalayas - photo by Zzvet, bigstockphoto.com
The power of mass intention may ultimately be the force that shifts the tide toward repair and renewal of the planet.
~ Lynne McTaggart
California Coastal Sunset - pphoto by Virrange Images, bigstockphoto.com
The world we are experiencing today is the result of our collective consciousness, and if we want a new world, each of us must take responsibility for helping create it.
~ Rosemary Fillmore
Grand Teton National Park - photo by Terra Tirapelli
Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know.
~ Pema Chodron
Morning Light, Garden of the Gods, Colorado - photo by pilgrims49, 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
Lotus Blossom - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.
~ Washington Irving
Mountain River Stream, in Tropical Rainforest - photo by Bigc Studio, bigstockphoto.com
We are all connected with the deep ecology of the universe and each of us has the ability to extend our consciousness far beyond the range of our physical senses.
~ Duane Elgin
Elf Garden, Iceland - photo by Ragnhildur Jonsdottir
All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other…
~ From Manifesto of the Fifth Sacred Thing, Starhawk
The Beauty of the Autumn Sun Shining Through Golden Beech Trees Leaves - photo by Smileus, bigstockphoto.com
Physicists now believe that entanglement between particles exists everywhere, all the time, and have recently found shocking evidence that it affects the wider, ‘macroscopic’ world that we inhabit.
~ Dean Radin
Monterey, CA - photo by Jen Silacci
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
~ Chief Seattle
Storm Clouds, Sedona, AZ - photo by ftlaudgirl, bigstockphoto.com
We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
~ Howard Zinn
Lotus Flower - photo by pakpoom17, bigstockphoto.com
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
~ John O'Donohue
Gold Autumn Forest - photo by Smileus, bigstockphoto.com
The future is an infinite succession of presents, 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
Sunset, Pebble Beach, CA - photo by Jen Silacci
The most fundamental law is to recognize that we share the planet with other beings, and that we have a duty to care for our common home.
~ Vandana Shiva
Diablo Lake, North Cascades National Park, WA - photo by Anna Abramskaya, bigstockphoto.com
Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.
~ Maya Angelou
Lotuses - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
In the universe there are things that are known and things that are unknown, and in between there are doors.
~ William Blake
Milky Way Above Mountain Range - photo by paulista, bigstockphoto.com
Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language... It is to say, 'My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.'
~ Desmond Tutu
Acacia Tree at Sunrise, Amboseli National Park, Kenya - photo by ajn, bigstockphoto.com
The great unspoken tragedy of the present time is that we have forgotten about the spiritual body of the earth. We have forgotten about the inner worlds. We have been censored. We live in a culture that has very, very efficiently told us that the outer physical world is all that exists. And even when we do spiritual practice and we discover our own spiritual self, there is often a blinker that stops us from then saying 'this spiritual self must be part of the whole and what is the relationship I have to the whole?' Once we make a relationship with the spiritual intelligence within creation—with the soul of the world—then we begin the groundwork, we begin the deeper healing.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Autumn Tree - photo by Ian 2010, bigstockphoto.com
When they hate, I will love. When they curse, I will bless. When they hurt, I will heal. I am a servant of the light. I am not afraid of darkness. I will carry on with my work as a steward of this Earth and of all her children. When they divide, I will unite. When they rage, I will calm. When they deny, I will affirm. I will simply be who I am: for that is what Spirit created me to be.
~ Steven Charleston
Golden Autumn Leaves - photo by dplett, bigstockphoto.com
The world is not a problem to be solved, it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation, lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.
~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Lotus Blossom - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
Many indigenous peoples share the understanding that we are each endowed with a particular gift, a unique ability…It is understood that these gifts have a dual nature, though: a gift is also a responsibility. If the bird’s gift is song, then it has a responsibility to greet the day with music. It is the duty of birds to sing and the rest of us receive the song as a gift.
Asking what is our responsibility is perhaps also to ask, What is our gift? And how shall we use it?
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
oto by mbridger, bigstockphoto.com
There was a time when the distances between our world and those we considered “imaginary” were no further than a bend in the road. Each cavern and hollow tree was a doorway to another world. Humans recognized life in all things. The streams sang and the winds whispered ancient words into the ears of whomever would listen. Every blade of grass and flower had a tale to tell…There was life and purpose in all things and there was loving interaction between the worlds.
~ Ted Andrews
Elf Garden, Iceland - photo by Ragnhildur Jonsdottir
And there, in its grand celestial dance
the sun took a step back,
the leaves lulled themselves to sleep,
and the magnificent glory that is Autumn
was awakened once again.
~ Raphael Franciscus
Autumn in Central Park - photo by Devadana Sanctuary
You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
~ Jane Goodall
Bold Coast Trail - photo by Terésa Stern
We are all one. Only egos, beliefs, and fears separate us.
~ Nikola Tesla
Northern Lights, Alaska - photo by JCB5754, bigstockphoto.com
The Navajo teach their children that every morning when the sun comes up, it’s a brand-new sun. It’s born each morning, it lives for the duration of one day, and in the evening it passes on, never to return again. As soon as the children are old enough to understand, the adults take them out at dawn and they say, ‘The sun has only one day. You must live this day in a good way, so that the sun won’t have wasted precious time.’ Acknowledging the preciousness of each day is a good way to live, a good way to reconnect with our basic joy.
~ Pema Chödrön
Sunrise, Monument Valley - photo by lucky-photographer, bigstockphoto.com
The most subversive thing we can do is love. If we do not like the way things are going, if we would like to see radical change: love is the way to create it. Anger and blame can release emotions of the moment, but they cannot sustain long term change. Only hope can do that. And love gives life hope in abundance. So join the revolution: love extravagantly.
~ Steven Charleston
Lotus - photo by Ange DiBenedetto
I do believe in an everyday sort of magic -- the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone.
~ Charles de Lint
Pacific Grove, CA - photo by Jen Silacci
The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whispering of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.
~ Terry Tempest Williams
Autumn Leaves - Photo by Indira Darst
Look around you. This very breath you take isn't yours alone, it's a shared symphony with the trees, the wind, the creatures unseen.
~ Deon Emmons
Giant Sequoias during Sunset - photo by Virrage Images, bigstockphoto.com
Earth is not a platform for human life. It’s a living being. We’re not on it but part of it. Its health is our health.
~ Thomas Moore
Maui, Hawaii - photo by maximkabb, bigstockphoto.com
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Here’s to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world. They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible. Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go. Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world. Be the hero you are looking for. Peace is possible. It begins with us.
~ L.R. Knos
Lotus Flower, photo by kenny001, bigstockphoto.com
The answers we seek lie in nature—nature is always sharing her teachings with us. The answers also lie in our own inner wisdom. We must shift the focus of our energy from our heads to our hearts, where we can listen to this wisdom.
~ Sandra Ingerman
Pancake Rocks, Punakaiki, New Zealand - photo by Rawpixel.com, bigstockphoto.com
Our personal attempts to live humanely in this world are never wasted. Choosing to cultivate love rather than anger just might be what it takes to save the planet from extinction.
~ Pema Chödrön
Sunset Sky - photo by Fahroni, bigstockphoto.com
We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
~ Paulo Coelho
Night Sky with Stars above Monument Valley, AZ - photo by lucky-photographer, bigstockphoto.com
The way we see the world affects the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity—then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.
~ David Suzuki
Waterfall, Mount Field National Park, Tasmania, Australia - photo by TK Kurikawa, bigstockphoto.com
I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves—we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other's destiny.
~ Mary Oliver
Saguaro Cactus and the Milky Way, AZ - photo by raphoto, bigstockphoto.com
The mountains are my bones,
The rivers are my veins.
The forests are my thoughts,
And the stars are my dreams.
The ocean is my heart,
The pounding is my pulse.
The songs of the earth
Write the music of my soul.
~ Pachamama Alliance
Mount Rainier National Park, WA - photo by Andrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com
Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything. It lives here, profoundly, at One Square Inch in the Hoh Rain Forest. It is the presence of time, undisturbed. It can be felt within the chest. Silence nurtures our nature, our human nature, and lets us know who we are. Left with a more receptive mind and a more attuned ear, we become better listeners not only to nature but to each other. Silence can be carried like embers from a fire. Silence can be found, and silence can find you. Silence can be lost and also recovered. But silence cannot be imagined, although most people think so. To experience the soul-swelling wonder of silence, you must hear it.
~ Gordon Hempton
Sun's Rays in the Deep Forest - photo by Virrange Images, bigstockphoto.com
Whether you are aware of them or not, whether you recognize them as spiritual or not, you probably have had the experiences of silence, or transcendence, or the Divine—a few seconds, a few minutes that seem out of time; a moment when the ordinary looks beautiful, glowing; a deep sense of being at peace, feeling happy for no reason. When these experiences come, believe in them. They reflect your true nature.
~ Ravi Shankar
Autumn in Golden Beech Trees - photo by Smileus, bigstockphoto.com
There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure…The material and the spiritual live together here.
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Mushrooms and Moss - photo by danil_1972, bigstockphoto.com
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.
~ Rumi
Lone Cypress, Pebble Beach, CA - photo by Jen Silacci
Maybe at times we need to crumble to the ground at the magnificence of it all, awestruck at the bounty laid out before us. To fall apart. To fail. To get back up. To be humbled again. To start over. To be a beginner. An amateur at the ways of love. To make this journey with our kindred travelers and the sun, moon, and stars. And to realize together how little we know in the face of it all.
~ Matt Licata
Milky Way, Stars, and Trees, Crimea - photo by denbelitsky, bigstockphoto.com
Plants, it turns out, really are highly conscious, intelligent and yes, they do have a brain. It’s just that no one ever looked in the right place.
Depth analysis of plant consciousness since the turn of the (new) millennium is finding that their brain capacity is much larger than previously supposed, that their neural systems are highly developed—in many instances as much as that of humans, and that they make and utilize neurotransmitters identical to our own. It is beginning to seem that plants are highly intelligent, feeling beings—perhaps as much or even more so than humans in some instances. (They can even perform sophisticated mathematical computations and make future plans based on extrapolations of current conditions. The mayapple, for instance, plans its growth two years in advance based on weather patterns.)
~ Stephen Harrod Buhner
Forest at Dawn - photo by Labunskiy K. bigstockphoto.com
If everything around seems dark, look again, you may be the light.
~ Rumi
Iceland Sunset - photo by rasica, bigstockphoto.com
Modern peoples...have mainly forgotten that we live in relationship as brothers and sisters with all the beings and forces of the natural world. Our scientific redefinitions of the "unseen" as the "unreal" have caused us to forget that we are all luminous strands in a giant web of belonging.
~ don Oscar Miro-Quesada, "Lessons in Courage"
Elf Garden, Iceland, July 2013 - photo by Ragnhildur Jonsdottir
Integrity is remembering that as individuals we are indivisible from the whole process in which we are participating — the integral evolution of life and consciousness. Integrity is about embracing the paradox that while most of us live our lives in a state of consciousness that separates subject and objects, self and world, even humanity and nature, there is a deeper ground of being and becoming — a quantum-entangled, implicate order of fundamental interconnectedness and co-creative reciprocity. We are individual nodes of consciousness.
~ Daniel Christian Wahl
Lotus - photo by Martha Paradis
All LIFE co-exists and co-creates as ONE. Mother Earth is our shared home, an evolving self-regenerating landscape that connects, nurtures and sustains all of us together. She recycles water and air, atoms and molecules. Sharing equally with ALL. Nature, our mother (who some call Gaia) is in truth more like a planetary cell or cosmic womb than a lonely rock spinning through space. ALL LIFE is Sacred. We are ONE Earth Community. Her life is our life..
~ Christopher Chase
Sunset, Iceland - photo by Ragnhildur Jonsdottir
[The] future can exist only when we understand the universe as composed of subjects to be communed with, not as objects to be exploited. “Use” as our primary relationship with the planet must be abandoned…
~ Thomas Berry
Keel Billed Toucan, Belize - photo by wollertz, bigstockphoto.com
In the forest the deer raise their heads. The eagle and the hawk glide above, piercing the thin air with their sharp cries. The buffalo gather in a circle. The wind in the trees falls silent. Something sacred comes this way. The Spirit comes this way. The unity of creation is not an idea, but a feeling. It is kinship. Open your heart and it will be there.
~ Steven Charleston
Red Deer Stag in Autumn Forest - photo by Veneratio, bigstockphoto.com
It’s in that convergence of spiritual people becoming active and active people becoming spiritual that the hope of humanity now rests.
~ Van Jones
Beautiful Lotus - photo by Peggy Braun
We are slowed-down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.
~ Albert Einstein
Waterfall and Lagoon, Mt. Tomah, Australia - photo by lovlerah, bigstockphoto.com
Extend the circle of “us” to include as much of the world as you possibly can.
~ Rick Hanson
Japanese Maple Leaf - photo by landio, bigstockphoto.com
Being "for" expands your heart. Being "against" contracts it. Feel this.
The energy you radiate from your chest is a thousand times more powerful than the opinion you hold in your head…
~ Fred LaMotte
Sunset, Garda Lake, Italy - photo by Alberto SevenOnSeven, bigstockphoto.com
No matter what problem you look at, every ecological problem comes from this illusion that we are separate from nature.
~ Vandana Shiva
Glacier National Park, Montana - photo by Andrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com
Practice guerrilla compassion — silently blessing people on-line at the bank, at the supermarket, in the cars next to us in traffic. Each blessing a tiny Sabbath, a secret sanctuary offered to a hurried and unsuspecting world.
~ Sharon Salzberg
Autumn Leaf - photo by Marjan Cermelj, bigstockphoto.com
Earth Mother teach me of my kin,
of Hawk, and Dove, and flower,
of blinding sunlight, shady knoll,
desert wind and morning showers.
Teach me every language of
the creatures that sing to me,
that I may count the cadence of
infinite lessons in harmony.
~ Jamie Sams
Desert and Mountains Near Phoenix, AZ - photo by Jeni Foto, bigstockphoto.com
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Raja Ampat, Papua, New Guinea, Indonesia - photo by attiamdt, bigstockphoto.com
I think it's a deep consolation to know that spiders dream, that monkeys tease predators, that dolphins have accents, that lions can be scared silly by a lone mongoose, that otters hold hands, and ants bury their dead. That there isn't their life and our life. Nor your life and my life.
That it's just one teetering and endless thread and all of us, all of us, are entangled with it as deep as entanglement goes.
~Kate Forster
Red Squirrel Feeding on Juniper Berries - photo by stefanholm, bigstockphoto.com
All human beings are descendants of tribal people who were spiritually alive, intimately in love with the natural world, children of Mother Earth.
When we were tribal people, we knew who we were, we knew where we were, and we knew our purpose.
This sacred perception of reality remains alive and well in our genetic memory. We carry it inside of us, usually in a dusty box in the mind’s attic, but it is accessible.
~ John Trudell
Colorful Ocean Sunset - photo by Andrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com
The basic principle seems to be: Everything in nature is here for a reason. And until we understand that reason, we better not just go around destroying things.
~ Charles Eisenstein
Northwestern Forest - photo by kvd design, 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
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
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Workshops
Workshops and on-line courses are in the works. We’ll put up workshop information as it becomes available. In the meantime, we hope you will enjoy the other offerings here at Devadana Sanctuary!