Native American Principles for Living Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect, Remain close to the Great Spirit, Show great respect for your fellow beings, Work together for the benefit of all mankind, Give assistance and kindness whenever needed, Do what you know is right, Look after the well-being of mind and body, Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good, Be truthful and honest at all times, Take full responsibility for your actions.
Why wasn’t my time spent helping people instead of a puppy? (Question asked at press conference of Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman author of From Baghdad With Love ) I don’t know and I don’t care, but at least I saved something. He’s like a cartoon character on fast forward, always chasing something, always chewing something, spinning head-on into something. He stalks shadows and dust balls and pieces of rolled up paper. He can eat an entire cigar in less than two minutes and drag a flak jacket all the way across the floor. The little s..t never stops. You can’t yell at him either, because even though you are an elite well-oiled machine of war who in theory can kill another human being in a hundred unique ways, you’d still be considered a freak if you yelled at a puppy. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman
Big cities grow by 1 million people per year and will hold more than 1/2 the Earth's population within a decade... World Bank
Ground Rules for Staying Balanced
Show Up, and be present Pay Attention to that which has heart and meaning for you Tell the Truth, without blame or judgment Let go; be open to outcome, but not attached to a certain outcome.
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts...There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of naturethe assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.
Rachel Carson
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, (he) needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with (him) the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.'
Rachel Carson
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see the land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.......That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that the land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.'
Aldo Leopold
Let there be no mistake about it: if the general public accepts the pretext of "civilisation" in all good faith, there are some for whom it amounts to no more than mere economic hypocrisy, a cloak for their designs of conquest and economic civilisation; but what strange times indeed, when so many men allow themselves to be persuaded that they are making a people happy by reducing them to subjection, by robbing them of what is most precious in their eyes, namely their own civilization, by compelling them to adopt customs and institutions which were intended for another race, and by coercing them into assuming the most distasteful occupations in order that they my perforce come to acquire things for which they have not the slightest use! That however is the position today: the modern West cannot tolerate the idea that men should prefer to work less and be content to live on little; as quantity alone counts, and as everything that eludes the grasp of the senses is held moreover to be non-existent, it is taken for granted that anyone not producing material things must be an "idler". Rene Guenon, The Crisis of The Modern World
Our main purpose in life is to dialogue with the self-empowering qualities of principal ideas which were instilled in us and in the physical beauty of the earth. Joseph Rael
If we can name, or identify our world, we know better how to fit in harmony with it. Joseph Rael
Native Wisdom 1.
Accept that all of Nature is inherently holy;
2.
Hold a deep sense of reverence for Nature
3.
Spirit is dispersed throughout cosmos--not in one Supreme Being;
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Accept the enormous responsibility that humans have for sustaining harmonious relations within the natural world;
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Maintain balance and health of natural world is a spiritual duty individuals must perform daily;
6.
Need reciprocity---expressing gratitude and making sacrifices routinely to the natural world in return for its benefits;
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Honour Nature routinely;
8.
View wisdom and environment ethics in the very structure and organization of the natural world;
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View the Universe as a dynamic interplay of elusive and everchanging natural forces (not static physical objects);
10. See the natural world as alive and animated by single, unifying force; 11.
View time as circular;
12.
Know that Nature will always possess mysteries;
13.
View human thought, feelings and communication as intertwined with events and processes in the Universe;
14.
Emphasise celebration of and participation in the orderly designs of Nature;
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Recognise that most esteemed people are those who have reconciled inner and outer knowledge;
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Have a Sense of empathy and kinship with other forms of life;
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View the proper human relationship with Nature as a continuous dialogue.
Honor the Four Directions— Male, Future (Youth), Female and Past (Traditions) When making decisions
The means are the ends in the making. Gandhi
None of us gets to Ecotopia alone. We all go or no one goes. That's the law. Lorraine Anderson
Interconnectedness and inherent values..."a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." Aldo Leopold
We live in a postmodern world, where almost everything is possible and almost nothing is certain. Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic
Individual cultures, increasingly lumped together by contemporary civilization, are realizing with new urgency their own inner autonomy and the inner differences of others. The abyss between rational and the spiritual, the external and the internal, the objective and the subjective, the technical and the moral, the universal and the unique, constantly grows deeper. How do we insure the survival of a civilization that is global and at the same time clearly multicultural?...the central political task of the final years of this century, then, is the creation of a new model of coexistence among the various cultures, peoples, races, and religious spheres within a single interconnected civilization. To do this must see a common set of values and principles....leading this is new science...
1. Anthropomorphic Cosmological Principle: "we are mysteriously connected to the entire universe, we are mirrored in it, just as the entire evolution of the universe is mirrored in us"...science itself is now on the border between science and myth, between formula and story. 2. Gaia Hypothesis: "the dense network of mutual interaction between the organic and inorganic portions of the earth's surface form a single system, a kind of meta-organism, a living planet-Earth/Gaia; we are all parts of a greater whole; our destingy is not dependent merely on what we do for ourselves, but also on what we do for Gaia as a whole. If we endanger her, she will dispense with us in the interests of a higher value-life itself"
We may reiterate a thousand times that the basis of the new world order must be universal respect for human rights, but it will mean nothing as long as this imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of Being, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of Nature, the miracle of our own existence. It logically follows that, in today's multicultural world, the truly reliable path to coexistence, to peaceful coexistence and creative cooperation, must start from what is the root of all cultures and what lies infinitely deeper in human hearts and minds than political opinions, convictions--it must be rooted in self-transcendence: -
Transcendence as a hand reached out to those close to us, to foreigners, to the human community, to all living creatures, to nature, to the universe.
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Transcendence as the only real alternative to extinction.
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Transcendence as a deeply and joyously experienced need to be in harmony even with what we ourselves are not, what we do not understand, what seems distant from us in time and space, but with which we are nevertheless mysteriously linked because, together with us, all this constitutes a single world.
It is the belief of our people that all elements of the Natural World were created for the benefit of all living things Segwalise, Iroquois
Ecology teaches us that humankind is not the centre of life on the planet. Ecology has taught us that the whole earth is part of our "body' and that we must learn to respect it as we respect ourselves. As we feel for ourselves, we must feel for all forms of life--the whales, the seals, the forest, the seas. The tremendous beauty of ecological thought is that it shows us a pathway back to an understanding and an appreciation of life itself---an understanding and appreciation that is imperative to that very way of life. Greenpeace
You have two jobs: to use your training to stay safe every day, and to use your spirit to stay connected to your purpose-even when you don't know what your purpose is.
Make your classroom like council--facilitating dialogues, making sure everyone speaks, asking members to think, to listen, to reconsider, to make new meaning.
Teach me to know the pleasure of my own ecstasy as you have taught me the terror of my own fear.
To grow beyond the expectations we're raised with is a radical act necessary to the claiming of one's full self. Go when you must, but part of the task is to be still. It demands that I pay attention ALL of the time. If one becomes utterly still, the earth will speak in a language that can be understood". Life is fragile everywhere on this planet. All we have is right now.
The most vulnerable time for new truth in our lives is immediately after the discovery. Like the emerging seedling, we have made the decision to leave the seed's protective shell, but we are frail and unaware of the cold realities of early spring.
Rigid goal-setting keeps one from being fully present in the moment. To paddle confused waters, we had to always be ready for anything from any direction. There are moments when we experience selfevolution, when the structure of who we are is changed by choice and circumstance. Listen. The earth speaks wisdom. Tells when and how to move. Sets a cadence for the rhythm of our days. Unleashes the wildness within.
Do hawks with their phenomenal ability to soar and flap, take the shortcut across the widest part of the lake? Of course not, they slowly work their way down along the shore, using the easy drafts of thermals created by the high hills, stopping to rest on land when fog or adverse winds come in. Wild creatures know their limits, their vulnerabilities. Wild creatures who do not recognize risk and respect it do not live. Life is about survival and stripping down. Then preparation and rebuilding to have the wisdom to bounce back faster after crashes. Don't seek; let it come to you. Others don't know the language of the outdoors, the journey.
In the circle of our family, truthtelling is often the most difficult. But if we cannot start there, where do we start? Return to primitive knowing. Learn how to let go. Come back when you have learned what you are supposed to learn.
"The instruments of our bodies, when fully tuned and aligned, move with a grace and rhythm that is holy. In that holiness we are capable of our greatest actions. In those actions, our lives become Spirit Song." My paddling became more rhythmic, like a dance. I was dancing with the waves, singing their tune. Paddling like heaven.
Wait, rest, listen. Move forward out of the confidence of your own self.
"There comes a time in our lives when we are called to believe the unbelievable. If we allow ourselves to believe, we open the door to the infinite possibility of who we might become."
The longer I watched the more my body resonated with everything around me. It was as if my mind dropped down into my body, merging totally. No thought about time and place different from now. Just presence, awareness of deep integration, total oneness. When I can get to that place, reverance pervades all I do.
When we can hold council with fellow creatures of all species, then we are beginning to understand the presence of sacred in our lives. But the most challenging creature to hold council with is our own kind.
Run out all of your thoughts, until only silence remains, until the only thought possible was of the moment and all that is around you.
You only see when you are really paying attention.
Pray for courage to deal with all that lies ahead. To discover one's courage is the first step. To implement it is a much bigger step. This is how I learn. From the body. Through the body. My passion for the long race has become integrated with my passion for finding my self in nature, because the natural world is the wellspring from which I draw sustenance. The natural world is where and how I connect to God-GoddessSpirit-Mystery. By rotating leadership, sharing responsibility, and attending to Spirit, people may realign with their own dreams, social awareness and spiritual values. To companion vision and work to hold heartspace, to re-create community, to find the courage to respond to the pressing needs of the earth, its people and culture.
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