“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals… We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of haven taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours…gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time.
“…as long as I can walk up the trail behind the house, or as long as I can go out into the yard and look up at the stars, I’ll never be unhappy, never. Not just count my blessings, but shout them.”
“How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.
The white man’s dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man — all belong to the same family.”
“He said, ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.'”
Is it enough to be you, as you are right now? Is it enough to be present and not consumed by doing? Is it enough not to need anything?
This video by “The Mrs” examines self image, and the book I just finished, “The Map of Enough” ponders what it may look like to be satisfied with now – with where you live, what you have and who you are…
As the New Year of 2015 moves closer, I am examining this concept of enough.
Thankful for all that is and being present to this gratitude is enough more and more of the time.
The fullness comes from the inner gifts, never from outer appearances. From the wildness and completeness of nature, and not from those things that are contrived. From present moments and not busyness. From awareness. From taking a long sweet breath of life, as it is, now.
