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spiritual-ecologySpiritual Ecology

Our Earth is alive, a living, breathing being with a heart and a soul. She gives us life, nourishes us, feeds us, protects us, teaches us, and we are part of her.

Our ancestors lived with this awareness, and remembering this sense of belonging to life is something many of us long for. Yet, our modern culture, with all its glitter, comforts and conveniences, feeds our forgetting, and disconnection from Nature. We may become distracted and seduced by the 'glitters' of the world, though is what we are really seeking,  re~connection with Life?

How do we mend, how do we heal and re~weave the threads of our belonging to the Earth? How do we turn the tides of the destruction of our world, and sow beauty into the Earth for the future generations?

The elders tell us that We are the ones who create the change. And it begins within..

When we learn again to listen,

To feel,

To give with our hearts and hands in ways that nurture and care for life.

The sacred is infused within every leaf, every rock, every drop of water, in the starlight and moonlight, the whisper in the wind.

 

May we remember, may we re-weave the threads and write a new story as we dream and sing a new world into being.

 

What gifts do we each bring here to this beautiful world?

What is the deepest calling of your heart?

What is the sacred sound of your soul?

 

.... Words of Inspiration ....

 

"Every time I step upon the Earth, I will train myself to see that I am walking on you, my Mother. Every time I place my feet on the Earth I have a chance to be in touch with you and with all your wonders. With every step I can touch the fact that you are not just beneath me, dear Mother, but you are also within me. Each mindful step can nourish me, heal me, and bring me into contact with myself and with you in the present moment."

Thích Nhất Hạnh - from 'Love Letters to Mother Earth'

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“Soil is a living entity. When we tend the soil we tend our inner soil. I don’t think there is a barrier between the earth beneath our feet and our soul.”~ Deb Soule

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“The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.”Thích Nhất Hạnh

 

"If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.” ~ Lao Tzu

 

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Through the beat of the drum, we are mending. We are mending and rekindling our hearts. We are remembering the beauty and magic that dwells within the simple tasks of life, and the cyclical rhythms of Nature. We are listening to the voices and looking to the bundles gathered by our elders; those who have walked the trails ahead of us and who's worn boots allow them to speak and hold space with the wisdom that sees beyond judgment. We are lighting our fires and tending the hearth. We tend an ancient flame. We pick up our grandmothers needles and add our stitches into the weave. The lines have been broken, our ways may seem lost, yet they remain, hidden around and within us. And so we quest and walk the land and gather again to listen beneath the starlit skies to the songs of our ancestors, which echo still within our bones. 

The Earth is calling us home. Home and to the sacred places of our lands, where the purity of Her essence remains alive, resonant, silent and singing, to those who will quieten and empty enough to hear them. The mountains, standing ones and stone circles carry the crystalline wisdom of the land; they whisper softly within the light of the dawn and dusk, ancient conversations between the earth and stars. The bubbling springs, rivers and seas sing of the sacred paths of life. The caves and long nights of winter draw us inwards, to cleanse and heal within. We are called, as daughters and sons of life to quietly tend these places, with our prayers, our offerings, our song. And through doing so we recover our dignity, reweave the fragments of our scattered traditions, mend our hearts and minds... As tears flow like rivers, braiding into one great prayer of healing the past and the damage we have done, to walk again the paths that nourish and protect life, as we agreed in the beginning. 
~ Lana Lanaia

 

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"Search not for happy
But have a heart
To swim into the waters
Of your lost self.
When you have learnt to dive
Under the waves of your own tears
You will have reached
The shore of joy."

~ Phyllida Anam Aire

I share these words from Phyllida Anam~Aire, a soul midwife and wise elder who has taught me much over the past few years about life, death, love, loss and opening my heart to the all.

As we approach Samhain, as the days shorten and leaves are falling from the trees, I find myself naturally drawn to gather my energy inwards, to reflect and look to what may be asking to be released and die, giving space for something new to live. I seek the courage, and the grace, to release parts of myself, held by the petiole of clinging hands, back to the soil.

Watered by holy tears, who knows which seeds will sprout and grow out of that dark earth?

Our tears, like the salt water of the oceans, are sacred.

Grief is a river and rivers need to flow.

Once we may have picked up a needle and yarn and woven our grief and love into a tapestry. One that became a blanket of healing & protection, which covered and warmed the generations to come.

What might we weave of beauty into life, once we dive beneath the waves of our tears?

I wonder, what could be healed & woven anew into our world, if more of us allowed our tender hearts to feel, and our holy tears to flow?

~ Lana Lanaia

 

 


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