“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
-Robin Wall Kimmerer
“The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness”
-John Muir
“At the darkest moment comes the light.”
-Joseph Campbell
“I danced with my shadows until they became part of my light.”-Jodi Livon
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. “
Ernest Hemingway
“the bracing and buoyant equilibrium of concrete outdoor Nature, the only permanent reliance for sanity of book or human life.”
-Walt Whitman
“The trick is, I find, to tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies… After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.”
-Walt Whitman
“I’m busy;but not in the waymost people accept.I’m busy calming my fearand finding my courage.I’m busy listening to my kids.I’m busy getting in touchwith what is real.I’m busy growing things andconnecting with the natural world.I’m busy questioning my answers.I’m busy being present in my life.”— Brooke Hampton
“Ten times a day something happens to me like this –
some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell.
This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know:
that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”
-Mary Oliver
there are placesplaces on earththat are magical.that no words canhope to describe.where your soulempty and drainedis restored.where the whispers of angelsshimmer through the treesas if on a mist.perfectly and peacefully.and gently floatingon the warm spring breeze.drifting weaving.falling on my facefilling me with grace.-Michael Traveler, from “Places”
“Stillness is vital to the world of the soul. If as you age you become more still, you will discover that stillness can be a great companion. The fragments of your life will have time to unify, and the places where your soul-shelter is wounded or broken will have time to knit and heal. You will be able to return to yourself. In this stillness, you will engage your soul. Many people miss out on themselves completely as they journey through life. They know others, they know places, they know skills, they know their work, but tragically, they do not know themselves at all. Aging can be a lovely time of ripening when you actually meet yourself, indeed maybe for the first time. There are beautiful lines from T. S. Eliot that say:
‘And the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.”
-John O’Donohue
Excerpt from the book, Anam Cara
“You carry Mother Earth within you, She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer. In that kind of relationship you have enough love, strength and awakening in order to change your life.”
–Thich Nhat Hanh
“The dream of my life is to lie down by a slow river and stare at the light in the trees—to learn something by being nothing a little while but the rich lens of attention.”—Mary Oliver, excerpt from Entering the Kingdom
