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nature - nature 2
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After all,
I don't see why I am always
asking for
private, individual,
selfish
miracles when every
year there
are miracles like white
dogwood.
Anne
Morrow Lindbergh
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The very uprightness of the pines and maples
asserts the ancient
rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives
need the relief of such
a background, where the pine flourishes
and the jay still screams.
Henry David Thoreau
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This above all--ask yourself in the stillest hour
of your night: must I write?
Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be
affirmative,
if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple
"I must,"
then build your life according to this necessity; your life even
into its most
indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a
testimony
to it. Then draw near to Nature. Then try, like some
first human being,
to say what you see and experience and love and lose.
Rainer
Maria Rilke
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If only we know, boss, what
the stones and rain and flowers say. Maybe
they call--call us--and we don't hear them. When will
people's ears open,
boss? When shall we have our eyes open to see? When
shall we open
our arms to embrace everything--stones, rain, flowers, and
people? What
do you think about that, boss? And what do your books have
to say about that?
Nikos Kazantzakis
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But, indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that
the forest makes a claim
upon people's hearts, as for that subtle
something, that quality
of the air, that emanation from the old
trees, that so wonderfully
changes and renews a weary spirit.
Robert Louis Stevenson
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The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
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They who wander widest lift
No more of beauties' jealous veils,
Than they who from their doorways see
The miracle of flowers and trees.
John Greenleaf Whittier
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No life can be barren which
hears the
whisper of
the wind
in the branches, or
the voice
of the sea as it breaks
upon
the shore;
and no soul can
lack happiness
looking up
to the
midnight stars.
William Winter
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We can learn whatever
we need
in nature because we are
part of nature. Human beings
are part of Creation. We live by
the same laws as all of nature.
Anne Wilson
Schaef
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Cliffs that rise a thousand feet without a break,
Lakes that stretch a hundred miles without a wave,
Sands that are white through all the year, without a stain,
Pine-tree woods, winter and summer, ever green,
Streams that forever flow and flow without a pause,
Trees that for twenty thousand years your vows have kept,
You have suddenly healed the pain of a traveler's heart.
Chang Fang-sheng
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I was utterly alone with the sun and the earth.
Lying down on the grass,
I spoke in my soul to the earth, the sun,
the air, and the distant sea far
beyond sight. I thought of the
earth's firmness--I felt it bear me up: through
the grassy couch
there came an influence as if I could feel the great earth
speaking to me. I thought of the wandering air--its pureness,
which is its beauty;
the air touched me and gave me something of
itself. I spoke to the sea: though
so far, in my mind I saw it,
green at the rim of the earth and blue in deeper ocean;
I desired
to have its strength, its mystery and glory. Then I addressed the
sun,
desiring the soul equivalent of his light and brilliance, his
endurance and unwearied
race. I turned to the blue heaven over,
gazing into its depth, inhaling its exquisite
colour and
sweetness. The rich blue of the unattainable flower of the sky
drew
my soul towards it, and there it rested, for pure colour is
rest of heart. By all these
I prayed; I felt an emotion of the
soul beyond all definition; prayer is a puny thing
to it, and the
word is a rude sign to the feeling, but I know no other. By the
blue
heaven, by the rolling sun bursting through untrodden space,
a new ocean of ether
every day unveiled. By the fresh and
wandering air encompassing the world;
by the sea sounding on the
shore--the green sea white-flecked at the margin and
the deep
ocean; by the strong earth under me. Then, returning, I prayed by
the
sweet thyme, whose little flowers I touched with my hand ; by
the slender grass;
by the crumble of dry chalky earth I took up
and let fall through my fingers.
Touching the crumble of earth,
the blade of grass, the thyme flower, breathing
the
earth-encircling air, thinking of the sea and the sky, holding out
my hand for
the sunbeams to touch it, prone on the sward in token
of deep reverence, thus
I prayed that I might touch the
unutterable existence infinitely higher than deity.
Richard Jefferies
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The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me
in the house today
is not drear and melancholy, but good for me
too. Though it prevents
my hoeing them, it is of far more
worth than my hoeing. If it should
continue so long as to
cause the seeds to rot in the ground and
destroy the potatoes in
the low lands, it would still be good for the grass
on the
uplands, and, being good for the grass, would be good for me, too.
Henry
David Thoreau
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The
beauty of the trees, the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass, they speak to me.
The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky,
the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning,
the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me.
The strength of the fire, the taste of the salmon,
the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away,
they speak to me.
And my heart soars.
Chief
Dan George
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People's hearts away from nature become
hard.
Standing Bear
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Look
at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the
stars. . .
and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole
existence is joyful.
Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason;
they are not going
to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to
become rich
and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the
flowers--for no reason.
It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.
Osho
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I
remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of
pine
and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung
upon it, as upon
a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It
has given me
blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of
our
modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the
peaceful.
Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and
benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the
coyote
wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me--I am happy.
Hamlin
Garland
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If
the sight of the
blue skies fills you
with joy, if a blade
of grass springing up
in the fields has
power to move you,
if the simple things
of nature have a
message that you
understand, rejoice,
for your soul is alive.
Eleonora
Duse
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nature - nature 2
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Once
you have heard the lark, known the swish of feet
through hill-top grass and smelt the earth made ready
for the seed, you are never again going to be fully happy
about the cities and towns that people
carry like a crippling weight upon their backs.
Gwyn
Thomas
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Nature
teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons
in
stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.
John
Burroughs
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There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland
scenery that enters into
the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble
inclinations.
Washington Irving
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Nature
is painting for us, day after day, pictures of
infinite beauty
if only we have the eyes to see them.
John
Ruskin
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Little
Things
Orrick Johns
There's
nothing very beautiful and nothing very gay
About the rush of faces in the town by day;
But a light tan cow in a pale green mead,
That is very beautiful, beautiful indeed.
And the soft March wind, and the low March mist
Are better than kisses in a dark street kissed.
The fragrance of the forest when it wakes at dawn,
The fragrance of a trim green village lawn,
The hearing of the murmur of the rain at play
These things are beautiful, beautiful as day!
And I shan't stand waiting for love or scorn
When the feast is laid for a day new-born . . .
Oh, better let the little things I loved when little
Return when the heart finds the great things brittle;
And better is a temple made of bark and thong
Than a tall stone temple that may stand too long.
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Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of
nature
that overawes
our little anxieties and doubts; the sight
of
the deep blue sky, and the
clustering stars above,
seem to impart
a quiet to the mind.
unattributed |
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What particular
experiences will nourish your soul? No one can
prescribe that for you; it is something only you can know and
experience. What is satisfying for one person may be just
the
opposite for someone else. Being out in nature, by the
seashore,
or on a mountaintop works for me. Communing with nature
brings
me into soul time. But for others, being out in nature is
something
to be tolerated, or even an ordeal, or just what you do if you're
a member of a family that goes camping.
Jean Shinoda Bolen |
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Pay attention to rainbows, and snowflakes,
butterflies and the
songs of birds, the crash of storm-driven waves and the
mirror-surface of a quiet pond. Let the depths of nature
become a part of your innermost being.
Jonathan Lockwood Huie |
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All
my life through, the new sights of nature made me rejoice like a
child.
Marie Curie |
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And when,
Humanity, you will return to Nature, on that day your eyes will open,
you will gaze straight into the eyes of Nature, and in its mirror you
will see your own image. You will know that you have returned to
yourself, that when you hid from Nature, you hid from yourself.
When you return you will see that from you, from your hands and from
your feet, from your body and from your soul, heavy, hard, oppressive
fragments will fall and you will stand erect. You will
understand that these were fragments of the shell into which you had
shrunk in the bewilderment of your heart, and out of which you had
finally emerged.
On that day you will know that your former life did not befit you,
that you must renew all things, your food, your drink, your dress and
your home, your manner of work, and your mode of study--
everything! On that day, deep in your heart, you will know that
you had been wandering until you returned to Nature. For you did
not know life. A different life, a life not ready-made, a life
to be experienced in preparation and creation--that life you did not
know.
Therefore your life was cut in two--a very small shred of existence
and a huge experience of non-existence, of work, of labor, of
busy-ness. You did not think, and it did not occur to you, that
there is no life in a life ready-made. Preparation is itself
Life, for Nature also lives within the preparation of life, within the
creation of life.
A.D. Gordon
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quotations
- contents
-
welcome
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Daily
Meditations, Year One - Year
Two - Year Three
- Year Four
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We
might do well to stay home a few days and walk over the fields,
or to stand in the shelter of the barn door and reflect upon the
relentless and yet benevolent forces of Mother Nature. The laws of
nature are relentless. They can never be disobeyed without
exacting a penalty. Yet they are benevolent, for when they are
understood and obeyed, nature yields up the abundance
that blesses those who understand and obey.
Wheeler McMillen |
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If you
can't escape to the country, you can still sit at your window
and
watch the sky. You can watch the rain and the
snow. You can visit a
nearby park and watch the foliage
change with each season. You can turn
your face toward the
warmth of the sun or feel a gentle breeze whisper
against your
skin. You can wonder at the changing patterns of light in
a
summer sky, and feel the brisk tingle of snowflakes in a
winter storm.
Revel in the knowledge that your senses are
finely attuned to these
sensations of the natural world.
By staying in tune with nature, you
nourish the eternal spirit
within, you come back to the center of life
and
to the awareness
that God is everywhere present at each moment in time.
Susan L. Taylor
Lessons
in Living
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Nature
is a light, and by looking at Nature in her own light
we will
understand
her. Visible Nature can be seen in her
visible light;
invisible Nature will
become visible if we
acquire the power to perceive her in her
inner light.
Paracelsus |
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nature - nature 2
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Even nature has hidden lessons for mankind
underneath its silent saga.
The trees teach us to give without discrimination, the seasons
proclaim
that time keeps changing for the better and the vastness of the
sky bears
the amount of love we should hold in our hearts for everyone
we come across throughout the day.
Sanchita Pandey
Voyage to Happiness
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I realized long ago how much I could learn by observing nature and how
she deals with adversity. Nature doesn’t charge for therapy, either. She
sustains us and speaks to us. Her cycles and rhythms appear through light,
movement, and sounds: lapping waves, tumbling stones, pulsing sap of
plants and trees—all mimicking the rhythms inside our bodies. Even the
quaking earth, in periodic thrusts of volcanic labor,
speaks to the heart of us and our nature.
Bernie Siegel
No Endings, Only Beginnings |
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