A nation that destroys
its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying
the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/land.html
A nation that destroys
its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying
the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/land.html
Whether we or our
politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and
decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense
of justice than we do.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/wendell_berry.html
“So, friends, every day do something that
won't compute ... Give your approval to all you cannot understand ...
Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of
humus that will build under the trees every thousand years ... Laugh. Be
joyful though you have considered all the facts ... Practice
resurrection.”
― The Country of Marriage, Wendell Berry (probably my favorite Wendell Berry quote ever)
"Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all
our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a
sterner sense of justice than we do.”
― Wendell Berry
“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come
to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The
impeded stream is the one that sings.”
― Wendell Berry
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all
caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single
garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all
indirectly.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with
our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our
actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
~ Herman Melville
“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep." ~ William James
The bottom line is: We must be working on arriving at the destination for which we were put on this planet.
Yehuda Berg
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/destination_2.html
collage, 7.5 x 5.5 inches
The bottom line is: We must be working on arriving at the destination for which we were put on this planet.
Yehuda Berg
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/destination_2.html
The bottom line is: We must be working on arriving at the destination for which we were put on this planet.
Yehuda Berg
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/destination_2.html
The bottom line is: We must be working on arriving at the destination for which we were put on this planet.
Yehuda Berg
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/destination_2.html
The bottom line is: We must be working on arriving at the destination for which we were put on this planet.
Yehuda Berg
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/destination_2.html
Follow what you are genuinely passionate about and let that guide you to your destination.
Diane Sawyer
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/destination_2.html
Lately, I started thinking about what it means to be human. It's one of those questions that just seems to bring up more questions than answers. If we look to our DNA to find the answer, we find that it is 98.4% identical to that of a chimpanzee. In fact, some scientists believe that all life originated from the same one-celled organism, based on the fact that, "All species in all three domains share 23
universal proteins, though the proteins' DNA sequences—instructions
written in the As, Cs, Gs, and Ts of DNA bases—differ slightly among the
three domains." (All Species Evolved From Single Cell, Study Finds", by Ker Than, for National Geographic News). It seems clear that we are only one of the many life forms on this planet, and are somehow deeply connected to them all. We are of this Earth.
"Experiencing our full humanity requires us to attenuate our
self-centeredness by enfolding it within a much wider sense of self in
which we experience genuine love and compassion for all beings, both
living and non-living. There are many names for this wider, deeper self,
which is our deepest level of consciousness. My preference is for Arne
Naess’s term ecological self because it suggests that
the wider self is not some insubstantial, ethereal intellectualization,
but rather deeply rooted in the very materiality of our planet—in its
teeming biodiversity, its ancient crumpled continents, its swirling
atmosphere, and the depths and shallows of its lakes, rivers, and
oceans. Thus, the ecological self is not only the human self—it is also
the Self or soul of the world, the anima mundi, that awakens us to our
full humanity when we know, palpably, in our very bones, that there is a
selfhood far vaster than our own in which we live and have our being,
and to which we are ultimately accountable. C.G. Jung succinctly gives
us a taste of this when he says that 'At times I feel as if I am spread
over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every
tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that
come and go, in the procession of the seasons.'" (What Does it Mean to be Human? by Stephan Harding)
So what makes humans different from our fellow beings? It was once widely accepted that only humans used language, though it now appears that that's not the case. Are we the only animals with self awareness? The only ones with emotions? It seems that's not true either; I'm not going to bore you with more scientific articles, but experiments appear to prove that elephants, dolphins, primates and some birds are self-aware, and many would argue that they indeed experience emotions.
“It still hurts, but life is supposed to hurt. Too many people think
life is supposed to be easy and perfect all the time. But there is
always some hurt. It's part of being alive. You have to accept it's a
piece that every single person carries. It's what makes us human.”
― Katie Kacvinski, Still point
I really didn't know where to begin to answer this question. Obviously, there are many answers, depending on one's focus and point of view. In my research, I found that there really is no one theory that is generally agreed upon; rather, of course, it's more of a philosophical question. Is it spiritual awareness that makes us human? Our ability to use symbols and think abstractly? To be creative? Our capacity to look at the big picture and see beyond ourselves? Or is it the ability to think within the moral framework of "right" and "wrong"?
“Every age has its own way of mythmaking. Ancient Egypt had its myths,
the Sumerians and the Assyrians, the Christians and the Muslims, the
North and the South -- the style of creating myths always varies. What
myths are being created as a shelter even in the chaotic atmosphere of
today! Until doomsday humanity will create these shelters. What else
could people do when they come from one darkness and travel to another?
And with so much deprivation? Man remains man so long as he dreams.”
― Yasar Kamal
This whole exploration has left me with a lot to ponder. For me, I feel I can better express what I feel about being human visually than I can in words, because the whole question goes beyond words into a realm even more symbolic and abstract. I hope my ramblings and collage give you something to think about, or resonate with you in some way.
Best wishes and love to you all, my fellow humans, and to all beings that share this planet with us.
The love of wilderness
is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression
of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only
paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the
eyes to see ... No, wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the
human spirit, as vital to our lives as water and good bread.
~ Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
It is only when we are aware
of the earthand of the
earth as poetry that we truly live.
"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise occur."
~ W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
"When we are writing, or painting, or composing, we are, during the time
of creativity, freed from normal restrictions, and are opened to a
wider world, where colors are brighter, sounds clearer, and people more
wondrously complex than we normally realize."
~ Madeline L'Engle
It
is good to feel lost... because it proves you have a navigational sense
of where "Home" is. You know that a place that feels like being found
exists. And maybe your current location isn't that place but,
Hallelujah, that unsettled, uneasy feeling of lost-ness just brought you
closer to it. ~Erika Harris
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. ~Henry David Thoreau
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of
your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll
discover is yourself. ~Alan Alda
My quick collages are what you might call collage "sketches", usually made in a short amount of time from things I find laying around in my scrap piles. I find them to be fun as well as a great 'loosening up' exercise.
Mindful
Every
day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills
me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in
the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to
lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in
joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the
fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the
daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but
grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of
the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
