If sequestered pain made a sound, the atmosphere would be humming all the time.
~ Stephen Levine
This is part of being human, this knowing that we are all part of one another, inextricably involved; and at the same time alone, irrevocably alone.
~ Madeleine L’Engle
How we love individual trees, but how we forget that our tree is embedded within a community of beings—a forest—without which that individual could not exist. It is only through relationships that a solitary tree is able to survive. So, too, ourselves.
~ Fred Bahnson, from The Church Forests of Ethiopia
A Purification
by Wendell BerryAt start of spring I open a trench
in the ground. I put into it
the winter’s accumulation of paper,
pages I do not want to read
again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the sun, growth of the ground,
finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then,
and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy
enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise;
have been inattentive to wonders;
have lusted after praise.
And then upon the gathered refuse
of mind and body, I close the trench,
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new.
Within sorrow is grace. When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature.
~ Wayne Muller
What already exists immediately around us is more important than all of our anxieties about what’s not there yet. The imperfection of reality is perfect.
~ Kyle Chayka
Rivers, oceans, forests, mountains, earth, and rocks are all our body. To protect the living environment is also to protect ourselves.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
What year is it in your imagination?
~ Lynda Barry
I looked over at my neighbor, the song sparrow, and thought about how just a few years ago, I wouldn’t have known its name, might not have even known it was a sparrow, might not have even seen it at all. How lonely that world seemed in comparison to this one! But the sparrow and I were no longer strangers. It was no stretch of the imagination, nor even of science, to think that we were related. We were both from the same place (Earth), made of the same stuff. And most important, we were both alive.
~ Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing
