Yellowstone. Majestic earth workings of every sort. Power. Everlasting change and evolution. Steaming water, geysers, grand waterfalls, canyons, a deep and wide lake, fumaroles, mud pots, elk, bighorn sheep, grizzlies, black bear, cats, moose, and wolves!! Nine packs of wolves vying for dominance and survival, taking care of their families, broadening their empires. What a vision of nature’s overwhelming diversity and drive for balance. Life continuing in all its exuberance. There is never enough time to take it all in. I want to return and spend weeks in the Lamar Valley, getting to know the wolves and the landscapes. To become part of it, to know it. Undiminished by the island it has become, it is still becoming. So alive, so magnificent. Mysterious and overwhelmingly powerful.
“A thousand Yellowstone wonders are calling, ‘Look up and down and round about you.”
-John Muir, 1898
“There is nothing so American as our national parks…. The fundamental idea behind the parks…is that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us.”
– President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Click onto any image below to view a full size version – click arrows on full size to view all in full size
“This past summer I became really clear that my #1 prayer for my life is that I want to be living in gratitude all of the time. I asked myself “How can I be in every moment, action, and word, a walking thank you card to the Universe? How can I be in the spirit of Thanksgiving all of the time?”
It’s one thing to take a few moments out of the day and write down the things I’m grateful for, which can be a great practice for shifting perspective (and I do daily), but what if I lived every day like my only purpose was to express the immense appreciation I have to the Universe? That would be the ultimate Thanksgiving. How can we live in that feeling all the time? That is a question to examine in this holiday season.
Since I started asking myself that question and bringing more awareness to this idea I’ve noticed that I’m seeing the beauty everywhere and in everything more clearly. I’m taking the time to slow down and be grateful throughout the day. I give compliments more often as I’m seeing the light in others. I’m allowing myself to receive compliments fully. I’m being kinder to myself, and honoring my body with loving attention. I’m taking care of my family with joy and love and feeling more patient than ever. I’m regularly finding myself in awe of all Divine creation.
So even if it’s just for one day – what if we all tried to see the light, to be the light, and share the light with others?
“Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”
-Soren Kierkegaard
“We should take wandering outdoor walks, so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing.”
-Seneca
“It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.”
-Nietzsche
“It is a paradox that perhaps the single best way to still one’s mind is to put the body in motion.”
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
“Don’t kill animals for glory, that makes you the worst kind of bully.” -Seth Kantner
A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help. -Albert Schweitzer
“Our treatment of animals will one day be considered barbarous. There cannot be a perfect civilization until man realizes that the rights of every living creature are as sacred as his own.” -David Jordon
“I walked on, talking in my head. In all the miles no silence lived. Inside my thoughts, I realized finally that, more than in wind or cold or Breakup, the power and absoluteness of wild earth resided in its huge uncompromising silence.”
-Seth Kantner (from my favorite book of this year, Ordinary Wolves)
“We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”
—Anton Chekhov
“Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”
—Baruch Spinoza
“Peace has never come from dropping bombs. Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine manner.”
—Carlos Santana
“Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.”
—Jawaharlal Nehru
“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”
—Malcolm X
“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
—Moshe Dayan
“Every day we do things, we are things that have to do with peace. If we are aware of our life…, our way of looking at things, we will know how to make peace right in the moment, we are alive.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh
“First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.”
“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“Love they said burns you and builds you!
But with you, there is no ash,
Just Light.
-Kamand Kojouni
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”
“Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?”
