“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be.
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the dry-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
-Wendell Berry
Tag Archives: Photography
The Healing Forest
Let the magic, perfect inclusion, balance, beauty and peace of the forest heal you. It is always there providing sustenance, support and Love.
(two lovely video links are listed below if you can’t get out into the forest in person)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6VXaBdOvFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-wHq6yY2CI
Dreaming the Future
“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”
-Victor Hugo
“My dream is of a place and time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.”
-Abraham Lincoln
“Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.”
-Khalil Gabran
“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
The Greatest Gift
“If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself, if you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.”
-Lao Tzu
Wild Nature
“There is a love of wild nature in everybody.”
-John Muir
One of Degree, Not of Kind
“The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.”
-Charles Darwin
Bears are not companions of men, but children of God, and His charity is broad enough for both. Yet bears are made of the same dust as we, and breathe the same winds and drink of the same waters. A bear’s days are warmed by the same sun, his dwellings are overdomed by the same blue sky, and his life turns and ebbs with heart-pulsings like ours and was poured from the same fountain…”
– John Muir
Understanding the Language of Nature
The language that nature uses, how do we touch it, know it? It surely exists on a plane that some access readily, but most humans aren’t close enough to understand.
I love this time lapse video showing the loveliness of mushrooms sprouting from the forest floor, their umbrellas unfurling majestically. It speaks to me, but the language is clearer, louder when I’m the forest itself, listening…. listening.
Sunlight in a Wood…
“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”
~ C.S. Lewis
Sacred Water
“Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium.
There is no life without water.”
-Albert Szent-Gyorgyl
Sacred water, this precious gift holds our very existence.
Sweet life itself is not possible without water.
“In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans;
in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.”
-Kahlil Gibran
I stand with the Standing Rock Sioux
What is Divine in All of Us
My religion (by J Clement Wall)
My religion
doesn’t involve a church or a minister or a pulpit;
it’s practiced under a roof of sky,
whispered by the wind,
preached by birds and crickets and rivers and toads.My religion
isn’t written in scripture;
it’s written in the hearts of lovers
and parents
and artists
and everyone who,
broken from the weight of too many endings,
gets back up to love again.My religion
lies at the point of contact,
where feet meet earth,
where inhale meets exhale,
where your infinitely breakable heart meets mine.My religion
isn’t big on words like sin and wrong and perfect;
it’s big on honesty, vulnerability, messiness… awe.
The followers of my religion
are badass, open-hearted, hippie warriors of love,
who know that you don’t dance to get somewhere
or sing to reach the end of the song.We sing and dance to reach what is
divine in all of us.In love,
we are each other’s salvation.
