Powerful Thought: The dead bird urges you to write

Rachel Carson was urged to write ‘Silent Spring’ by the dead birds she held in her hands who called her to write.

She could not live, knowing what she had learned about DDT, without speaking, without – her gift – lifting her pen to write.

Comforting Thought: Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miled through the desert, repenting, you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” – Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Comforting Thought: Your body is not just mineral and elemental. No, it’s vividly alive

Your body isn’t just mineral and elemental. No, it’s vividly alive, as anyone knows who’s ever danced, had a sore throat, made love or stubbed a toe.

All of the baroque variety of life on earth is considered to come from a tiny common ancestor who appeared about 4 billion years ago.

Still today, on a cellular level, basic functions like respiration look similar in plants and animals. So does your DNA -we humans share about half of our genetic material with plants. We truly aren’t very far away from anything.

Ancient Fable: St. Francis of Assisi and the injured wolf

13th century Italian saint, St Francis of Assisi never understood earth as being a garden of resources over which we have dominion. Instead, he saw the earth as a mother or a sister who governs us.

Comforting Thought: Eccentricity

“To live rooted on a changing earth is to create a new story. There are so few voices left that speak for wild nature first. It’s time to clasp hands (paws, fins, feathers, branches) and know where we stand.” Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Comforting Thought: Real love runs on a lower voltage than our culture leads us to believe

When we pay attention to the sensations in our bodies, we can feel that love is the energetic opposite of fear. Love seems to open and expand us right down to the cellular level, while fear causes us to contract and withdraw into ourselves. Yet so often, fear keeps us from being able to say yes to love – perhaps our greatest challenge as human beings.

Comforting Thought: Wild hearts breed protection of a wild earth

“We enter as pilgrims, as wayfarers knowing there is something we are seeking. Something nameless, beautiful, waiting and wanting.” ~ Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Comforting Thought: Love is the energetic opposite of fear

When we pay attention to the sensations in our bodies, we can feel that love is the energetic opposite of fear. Love seems to open and expand us right down to the cellular level, while fear causes us to contract and withdraw into ourselves. Yet so often, fear keeps us from being able to say yes to love – perhaps our greatest challenge as human beings.

Comforting Thought: What natural sound would you preserve forever?

Silence The song of the cicadas Penetrates the rocks In Japanese there are many onomatopoeic words for the sounds in nature. shito shito: the sound of light rain zā zā: the sound of heavy rain  kasa kasa: the light sound of leaves rustling under foot  hyū hyū: the sound of wind blowing goro goro: theContinue reading “Comforting Thought: What natural sound would you preserve forever?”

Comforting Thought: Kindness is a muscle we exercise

Kindness is not a fixed trait that we either have or lack, but more like a muscle that can be developed and strengthened. We exercise kindness in any moment where we recognise our shared humanity- with all of the hopes, dreams, joys, dissapointments, vulnerability and suffering that this implies. Such simple but profound awareness levelsContinue reading “Comforting Thought: Kindness is a muscle we exercise”