In Part II of this two-part talk, Zach explores what it means to find belonging with the Earth, and belonging with the divine. We must see this Earth as our home, and see it as a living and loving relationship. Finally, while the divine is ineffable, putting ourselves on the path is more than enough. God doesn’t take away our pain, but gives us the courage to face it.
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Quotes from the episode:
“Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made personal, merely personal feeling. This is what is the matter with us: we are bleeding at the roots because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars. Love has become a grinning mockery because, poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the Tree of Life and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table…
It is a question, practically of relationship. We must get back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the universe… For the truth is, we are perishing for lack of fulfillment of our greater needs, we are cut off from the great sources of our inward nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally in the universe. Vitally the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe.”
– D.H. Lawrence
If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can overlook when those you love take it out on you when, through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend’s limited education and never correct him,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics,
Then, my friend, you are almost as good as your dog!
– Author unknown
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
― Chief Seattle
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
– A Course in Miracles
The same stream of life that runs
through my veins night and day runs
through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and
breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle
of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world
of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages
dancing in my blood this moment.
– Rabindranath Tagore
God has not promised to take away our trials,
but to help us change our attitudes towards them.
That is what holiness really is.
In this life happiness is rooted in our basic attitude toward reality.
For human beings the most daunting challenge
is to become fully human.
For to become fully human is to become fully divine.
The spirit calls us to transformation
of our in innermost being,
and indeed of all of our faculties,
into the divine way of being and acting.
Divine love picks us up,
when we sincerely believe nobody else will.
We then begin to experience freedom,
Peace, Calm, equanimity and liberation from cravings.
– Father Thomas Keating
Remember
That to have the eyes of an artist,
That can be enough,
The ear of a poet,
That can be enough.
The soul of a human
just pointed
in the direction of the divine,
that can be more than enough.
I tell you this to remind myself.
Every gesture is an act of creation.
Even empty spaces and silence
can be the wings and voices of angels.
– Michele Linfante
In seeking, you discover that you are neither the body nor the mind,
and the love of the self in you is for the self in all.
– Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away tonight.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
-Joy Harjo
