In a class I’m taking on line, a video featuring Doniga Markegard of Markegard Family Grass-Fed, explains how the seven sacred principles of the Lakota nation were taught to her as a child by her mentor Gilbert Walking Bull, and how these principles continue to inform her life and her approach to business. Her family farm in California, her commitment to these principles, to teaching, to connections, and to community are an inspiration.
“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.”
As this serene and majestic winter day winds into the night, I am absorbed with the simple luxury of watching the sun’s colors paint the evening sky. What better to be doing than this?
Still I will have time for more books, snow walks in the twilight, contemplation, before rest. I will wish for more before sleep…
The world is so grand in its offerings!
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see.”
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.
“Were I called upon to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the mist.”
-Edgar Allan Poe
“The joy of looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.”
“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
