Connecting to nature is not merely words that tell us what we must speak to others, how we must teach, but what we must practice.

There is a need to listen to the wisdom of the past to provide energy for what we must do in the present and to provide us a vision for the future. The following thoughts are reflecting points of the depth of thought that has preceded us and beckons us to move from awareness to action.  

“We are tied together in the single garment of destiny caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
―Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”
―Iroquois maxim

“There is no real aloneness. There is solitude and the nurturing silence that is relationship with ourselves, but even then we are part of something larger.”
― Linda Hogan, Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
―My First Summer in the Sierra, 1911, page 110. John Muir

“In nature nothing exists alone.”
―Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya wakan—the holy air—which renews all by its breath. Woniya, woniya wakan—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that. Woniya—we sit together, don’t touch, but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it. Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds as to our relatives.”
―John (Fire) Lame Deer, Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions

“Nature is not dumb. Humanity is dumb when we can't hear or when we forget how to communicate with nature. Nature is very much alive. Intelligent living beings and vibrant energies are all over the planet.”
―Sun Bear, Walk in Balance: The Path to Healthy, Happy, Harmonious Living

“All of creation is alive. Everything has a spirit, and we are part of everything. Our ancestors, the spirits of those who have lived before us, are here as well. We can’t be alone. I’ve said several times in this conversation that we’re all brothers—but you are only hearing the words in your head. It’s like I’m speaking poetry to you; you’re not taking me literally. Until you have an experience of our connection—until you feel it and know it in your bones—it’s just a concept to you. You don’t live from that understanding.”
―Spencer Martin in the documentary, “The Spirit of the Salmon”

“Global changes are part of everyday life, and are reflected in the interconnections between all things. Everything that nature does, and everything that humans do, contributes to the change through the law of cause and effect. We are all responsible.”
―Larry Sessions in Earth

“Everything is interrelated. The universe must be viewed as one, as a whole. We are all one. We are all part of the same whole.” 
―Rav Berg

“We are all connected in the sense that we all come from the same source. We are all made of the same stuff, the same stuff that the whole universe is made of.”
―Carl Sagan

“What is Inside you is around you and what is around you is inside you."
―Ancient Indian Vedas

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
―Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. ”
―Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

Photo Credit: Joe Baust