“The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity — then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.”

David Suzuki

“I found myself without desires
and without knowledge.
There was nothing left but love,
the state of witness was left behind;
there was only love, all pervading,
all embracing, absolute.
There were no crucial experiences,
no soul-shattering visions.
I just ceased imagining myself to
be what I never was and there was
nothing to replace the unreal with.
There was no need to look for
replacements – the nothingness
was the fullness of understanding,
love and silent peace.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj

“We all have different selves: There is a public self, a private self, and a core self. We all know the public self – it’s how we put our best foot forward, smiling and behaving. But the private self is a more fundamental self, and that is where we find our frailties, our fears. It’s like a clearinghouse where our demons are safe. Then there’s the core self, which is our pure instinct. That’s where all our goodness and capacity for kindness lives. You can feel it sometimes. When people say, “I feel it in my stomach,” that’s the core self. Our best comes from there, and we know how courageous and honorable we are. The core self is who we are.”

Sidney Poitier

“To have the ability to withdraw into oneself and forget everything around one when one is creating: that, I think, is the only requirement for being able to bring forth something beautiful. The whole thing is a mystery.”

Edvard Grieg, composer and Unitarian, who died on this day in 1907

Womb by Rachel Barenblat,

“At the bend of the river
there’s a pond we don’t call
the womb of the world, though we could —
this patch of deep water reflecting
tall purple loosestrife.
The pond is a womb, the world
is a womb. Emerge glorious
and dripping, emerge like Life
radiant and new. Then listen
to cricket-song’s rise and fall —
the One Who speaks us into being
the One Who enwombs all creation
is murmuring blessing over
and over, telling us who we are.”

“Do you know what you are?
You are a manuscript of a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.
This universe is not outside of you.
Look inside yourself;
everything that you want,
you are already that.”

Rumi

“Love is the very foundation, beauty and fulfilment of life. If we dive deep enough into ourselves, we will find that the one thread of universal love ties all beings together. As this awareness dawns within us, peace alone will reign.

Once we develop the attitude that “I am love, the embodiment of love,” then we need not wander in search of peace for peace will come in search of us.

Love sustains everything!”

Mata Amritanandamayi, also known as Amma

“Every time I meet a tree, if I am truly awake, I stand in awe before it. I listen to its voice, a silent sermon moving me to my depths, touching my heart, and stirring within my soul a yearning to give my all.

Nature’s music is never over; her silences are pauses, not conclusions.

The love of nature is a passion for those in whom it once lodges. It can never be quenched. It cannot change. It is a furious, burning, physical greed, as well as a state of mystical exaltation. It will have its own.

No accident of environment or circumstance need cut us off from nature. … It does not matter how shut in we are. Opportunity for wide experience is of small account in this as in other things; it is depth that brings understanding and life.

Green is the fresh emblem of well -founded hopes. In blue the spirit can wander, but in green it can rest.”

Mary Webb

From The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney, who died on this day in 2013,

“Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.

The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don’t hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.”

“Spirit of beauty, whose revelations come to us in sun and rain, dawn and dusk,
In all flowing, circling, shining and living things,
And in the quiet at the heart of all motion,
Be within us this day as the wonder and welcome of the living soul.
Awaken our senses and quicken our minds
That we may partake, and be inwardly fed and renewed.
May we give our hearts to beauty,
As the harp gives itself to the hand.
May we turn towards the true and the good,
As buds and flowers are uplifted to the sun.”

Joseph Trapp, Unitarian Universalist minister (1899 – 1992)