Closer to home

Wild cherry in October.

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.

~ David George Haskell, The Songs of Trees

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A detour: Attracted to the light

In the Vayo Meditation Garden, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. (June 2017)

We are rag dolls made out of many ages and skins, changelings who have slept in wood nests or hissed in the uncouth guise of waddling amphibians. We have played such roles for infinitely longer ages than we have been men. Our identity is a dream. We are process, not reality, for reality is an illusion of the daylight — the light of our particular day.

~ Loren Eiseley

Evening sky

Moon at sunset.

There is a moon inside every human being.  Learn to be companions with it.

~ Rumi

The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.

~ Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me 

A Monday meander: Elemental

Floating in a sea of green.

Don’t dismiss the elements. Water soothes and heals. Air refreshes and revives. Earth grounds and holds. Fire is a burning reminder of our own will and creative power. Swallow their spells. There’s a certain sweet comfort in knowing that you belong to them all.

~ Victoria Erickson

Before the storm

Just before sunset yesterday.

Expose yourself to your deepest fear, and after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

~Jim Morrison

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

The Calm

On the way to the Point to watch the sunset yesterday evening.

We are witnessing the severe impacts of climate change throughout the world. Every credible scientific source is telling us that these impacts will only get worse if we do not address climate change and it also tells us that our window of time for addressing it is closing very soon…We need to dramatically increase our ambitions.

~Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change.

~Pope Frances in Laudato Si (the Pope’s Encyclical on the Environment)

A Monday meander: Silence

The silence of sunset.

Silence is like a cradle holding our endeavors and our will; a silent spaciousness sustains us in our work and at the same time connects us to larger worlds that, in the busyness of our daily struggle to achieve, we have not yet investigated. Silence is the soul’s break for freedom.

~David Whyte

Listen to the silence as it echoes around you. Ancient spirits dance to it.

~Amber Coverdalle Sumrall