Excerpts from a book finished this morning. I can see re-reading many of these essays often to reawaken a sleeping notion that seems too often buried in the lives we lead. I’m guessing that this is the candle of hope, of connectedness, of compassion, of possibility. From a book entitled Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, which is a collection of twenty pieces from folks well known and not who provided a glimpse of a way of seeing/sensing our connections. These writings resonated with something much deeper than the rational brain. They are indeed soulful, like the best music that lifts you to a special communion with the world at hand.
some of the many endorsements precede the excerpts..
David Orr, "What ails us is deeper than what's easily measurable by economics or science. Spiritual Ecology is a collection of profound writings by some of the wisest among us about the depths of the crisis and the wellsprings of redemption."
Charles Eisenstein, " This book takes us beyond -- through, not around -- the grief and despair that the ecological crisis evokes. Herein lies an authentic possibility of healing through a transformation in our way of knowing, relating, and being."
Wisdom traditions worldwide say there's no greater blessing than to live the life of your soul; doing so is the source of your deepest personal fulfillment and of your greatest service to others. It's what you were born for. It's the locus of authentic personal power -- not power over people and things, but rather power of partnership with others, the power to co-create and enhance life and to cooperate with an evolving universe.
Before you discover your ultimate place, you are in a sense, lost. Before soul initiation, in other words, you have a particular destiny but don't know what it is.
Your soul is your true home, In the moment you finally arrive in and occupy this psycho-ecological niche, you feel fully available and present to the world, unlost. This particular place is profoundly familiar to you, more so than any geographical location or any mere dwelling has ever been or could be. You know immediately that this is the source, the marrow, of your true belonging. This is the identity no one could ever take from you. Inhabiting this place does not depend on having anyone's permission or approval or presence. It does not require having a particular job -- or any at all. You can neither be hired or fired from it. Acting from this place aligns you with your surest personal powers (your soul powers), your powers of nurturing, transforming, creating; your powers of presence and wonder.
(Bill Plotkin, "Care of the Soul of the World", pp.188-9)
If
we approached rivers, mountains, dragonflies, redwoods, and reptiles as
if they were all alive, intelligent, suffused with soul, imagination,
and purpose, what might the world become? Who would we become if we
participated intentionally with such an animate Earth? Would the world quicken
with life if we taught our children – and ourselves! – to sing and celebrate
the stories embedded in the body of Earth, in the granite bones of mountains and
rainy sky tears, in trembling volcanic bellies and green scented hills? What if
we apprehended that by nourishing the land and the creatures with generous
praise and gratitude, with our remembrance or tears, we rejuvenate our own
relationships with the wild Earth, and possibly revitalize anima mundi
– or soul of the world.
… Perhaps
the world deeply longs for the consciously imagining human to participate in
birthing a new era in the human-Earth relationship. A practice of approaching
the world as if everything is alive – saturated with psyche,
purpose, and intelligence – re-enlivens us; in companionship with our
increasing human aliveness, the world shimmers with both possibility and pain,
no longer insentient, no longer without its own longings, it psychic depths,
its soul.
(Geneen Marie Haugen, "Imagining Earth", pp159, 171)
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