nature

April 1994 (Vol. VII, No. 4)

SPRING GREETINGS, friends. May blessings of life and love, healing and beauty, grace you lives ... may harmony flow that flowers may unfold and blossom within your inner beings! For "the currents of life in humanity and nature are always in accord unless humanity disturbs the harmony." (C. Heline)

We are earth of this earth, and we are bone of this bone

Barbara Deming

Spirit that hears each one of us,
hears all that is --
Listens, listens, hears us out --
inspire us now!
Our own pulse beats in every
stranger's throat.
And also within the flowered ground
beneath our feet.
We can hear it in water, in wood, and
even in stone.
We are earth of this earth, and
we are bone of this bone.
This is a prayer I sing, for we
have forgotten this and so
the earth is perishing.

All of nature is in us

Lame Deer

All of nature is in us, all of us is in nature,
This is as it should be.

God is the friend of silence

Malcolm Muggeridge Something Beautiful for God

God is the friend of silence. See how nature -- trees, flowers, grass -- grow in silence; see the stars, the moon, the sun, how they move in silence... The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us. All our words will be useless unless they come from within.

There are three walls that divide us from one another

Reshad Feild Reason Is Powerless in the Expression of Love

There are three walls that divide us from one another and from the realization of Unity for which we yearn... These are the walls of envy, resentment and pride... Everything is reaching towards the light, and just as the trees and the beautiful flowers seek out the light, so does Beauty herself seek out the light within us. As long as Beauty is covered by these walls, She cannot be one with the Light who created Her in the first place... When you can watch and observe and be honest about the sense of separation that we all feel, you will come closer to the walls. And then, gently, you can reach out to each stone and brick that needs to be removed ... stones and bricks that can be washed and transformed in love.

We can only start to grow in being when we take time to be still

Margaret Holmes Growth Into Being

We can only start to grow in being when we take time to be still, even if it is only a few minutes each day, and open ourselves to God, like a flower opening its pedals to the sun, and receiving the strengthening rays of light. With continual practice, we can actually know that the spirit of Divine Love -- the Love of the omniscient creator of the entire universe -- is in us. ... Being still and experiencing the presence of God is the most important thing we can possibly do; for in this state of passivity we receive directive and strength for the day's action.

The direct experience of silence, stillness, solitude, simplicity, ceremony and vision

Sogyal Rinpoche

The wisdom of the peoples of elder cultures can make an important contribution to the post-modern world, one that we must begin to accept as the crisis of self, society and the environment deepens. This wisdom cannot be told, but it is to be found by each of us in the direct experience of silence, stillness, solitude, simplicity, ceremony and vision.

As long as it talks, I am going to listen

Thomas Merton

What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, intelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows! Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks, I am going to listen.

Optical delusion of our consciousness

Albert Einstein Ideas and Opinions

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe", a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Many of us need the wilderness

Ann H. Zwinger Wind in the Rock

Many of us need the wilderness as a place to listen to the quiet, to feel at home with ancient rhythms that are absent in city life, to know the pulse of a river, the riffle of the wind, the rataplan of rain on the slickrock.

Spirituality is that quality of being

Bob Samples Mind of Our Mothers

Spirituality is that quality of being that expresses the bonding of all living and non-living things into an evolutionary unity.

How we teach

Unknown
We teach by our BEing.

My first remembered experience of the numinous

Edward Robinson The Original Vision

My first remembered experience of the numinous occurred when I was barely three... The sun was shining, and as I walked along the dusty lane I became acutely aware of the things around me. I noticed a group of dandelions on my left at the base of a stone wall. Most of them were in full bloom, their golden heads irradiated by the sun, and suddenly I was overcome by an extraordinary feeling of wonder and joy. It was as if I was part of the flowers, and stones and dusty earth. I could feel the dandelions pulsating in the sunlight, and a timeless unity with all life.

Everything was God, holy

George Leonard The Silent Pulse

George Leonard in THE SILENT PULSE shares the sense of unity and harmony with the planet that a young man of seventeen experienced:

"Even though physically separate, I knew a tree, grains of sand, sea, flying birds. Everything was God, holy; as God is total, so the driftwood branch was holy. This must be the stuff religion is made of. Never before or after have I felt so alive."

Behold, my friends, the spring has come!

Behold, my friends, the spring has come!
The earth has received the embraces of the sun,
And we shall soon see the results of that love!
Every seed is awakened and so has all animal life.
It is through this mysterious power that we, too,
have our being.
And we, therefore, yield to our neighbors,
even our animal neighbors,
The same right as ourselves to inhabit this land.

The world is not a machine

The world is not a machine, but an exquisite sanctuary. You need to be one with the world. You need to feel that you are not an accident in this world. You need to feel that the world is not an accident either. You need to celebrate your own uniqueness in a world that is sacred. The sacredness of the world, your dignity and your sovereignty, are assured by the assumption that the world is a sanctuary. To act in a world as if it were a sanctuary is to make it reverential and sacred; and is to make yourself elevated and meaningful. What the universe becomes depends on you. Treat it like it becomes a divine place. Treat it indifferently and ruthlessly and it becomes an indifferent and ruthless place. Treat it with love and care and it becomes a loving and caring place.

Rocks and tree roots

If our ordinary, self-centered viewpoint is dominant, rocks and tree roots are undesirable. But if we change our point of view, then the very fact that there are rocks and tree roots makes the valley stream more beautiful and the sight of waves breaking upon them beyond description. When we perceive joy, anger, happiness and sorrow as enriching our lives, just as rocks and tree roots and water spray embellish nature, then we are able to accept whatever happens and live like flowing water, without clinging to anything.

These are only hints and guesses

These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses;
And the rest is prayer, observance, discipline,
Thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood,
Is Incarnation.

Grounded in water and earth

Grounded in water and earth, we, like trees are connected to our mother. With roots deep in the earth, we are called to rest in her shelter where we don't have to say or do anything, just BE. Here we can know the nurturance and comfort of a God who surrounds un in warmth and wisdom in this sheltering womb, a constant Presence in our darkness and our light.

The silence becomes a Presence

It is in deep silence that we enter into contact with the Indwelling Presence, with the radiance, the energy, the illumination and the fullness of Resurrection. In silence we discover our hunger and taste for the Word of God. our silence before the mystery of our own creation enables us to experience something of God drawing us ever closer. Silence in awe of God's creating love creates in us an ever deepening capacity for the word of God. The silence becomes a Presence.

I watch a hawk soar through the morning sky

I watch a hawk soar through the morning sky and something falls into place within me. It is as if I travel through a wood long unvisited and recognize familiar trees grown taller with the passing time. I come upon a thought, an act, a place with the vague sense of having thought that, done that, been there before. Or I come to a fork in the road and I know by some unexplainable sense which is right for me. I walk and uncover or discover anew what I have always known. Living intimately with nature opens doors in my spirit; the mystery becomes known, darkness becomes light.

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