Christmas tree decorations and reflections (with some bokeh thrown in for good measure).
Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes.
~ Clarice Lispector
Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let’s not be afraid to receive each day’s surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy. It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.
You wake from dreams of doom and – for a moment – you know: beyond all the noise and the gestures, the only real thing, love’s calm unwavering flame in the half-light of an early dawn.
When I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.
Anytime loon shows up as a totem, it is calling to you to pay attention to your dreams. It indicates that they will be of greater importance, along with becoming more vibrant and colorful. The haunting call of the loon may also be telling you that all those hopes, wishes, and dreams that you have tucked to the back of the heart are about to come to the surface. The loon may be signalling you not to compromise them again, or you may truly find yourself haunted.
The loon will teach new states of consciousness. It will also help you to deepen those you have already awakened. Because it lives close to the water — at the shore line — it can teach you to use these various states of consciousness to open to new dimensions and other life forms…
… To most people, the call of the loon is its most distinguishing feature. It is haunting and touches the soul in a primal way. The loon is actually very talkative, and it has a whole repertory of calls — each different in sound and meaning. One of its calls is similar to the sound of a wolf howl. One is like a trilling laugh. It will often use the call to distract predators away from the nest. To many outdoors people, the loon call is the true call of the wild. It stirs the primal embers within all who hear it — no matter how long those embers have lain cool. It is as if the sound is calling forth all that we have ignored or shoved to the back of the closet in our minds.
There are so many unsung heroines and heroes at this broken moment in our collective story, so many courageous persons who, unbeknownst to themselves, are holding together the world by their resolute love or contagious joy. Although I do not know your names, I can feel you out there.
~ David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology
Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish.
~ Munia Khan
We’re all—trees, humans, insects, birds, bacteria—pluralities. Life is embodied network. These living networks are not places of omnibenevolent Oneness. Instead, they are where ecological and evolutionary tensions between cooperation and conflict are negotiated and resolved. These struggles often result not in the evolution of stronger, more disconnected selves but in the dissolution of the self into relationship. Because life is network, there is no “nature” or “environment,” separate and apart from humans. We are part of the community of life, composed of relationships with “others,” so the human/nature duality that lives near the heart of many philosophies is, from a biological perspective, illusory.
