summer

To see all things at their origin, their beginning, puts us in kinship with all that lives: trees, birds, stars seem foreign to us only inasmuch as we perceive them outside of our common origin with them.To drink at the source of all that lives and breathes expands the heart and makes the blood sing, echoing the song of all the vital fluids in the world.To dwell near all beginnings is to draw infinitely near to that which creates both the unity and the diversity of all beings.

This earth is my sister: I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am, how we admire this strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: we are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her.

"It doesn’t matter to most people that the wind sings in the trees or that a mountain shimmers in the sunlight.But you find life in all this, a life you can partake of."

I replied that no one understands nature: a tree bathed in sunlight, a weathered stone, an animal, a mountain, each has life, has a tale to tell, is a life, suffers, endures, experiences joy, dies -- but we
don’t understand it.

Be a gardener.
Dig a ditch,
toil and sweat
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.

Blessed are the men and women
  who are planted on Your earth in Your garden,
Who grow as Your trees and flowers grow,
  who transform their darkness to light.
Their roots plunge into darkness;
  their faces turn toward the light.
All those who love You are beautiful;
  they overflow with Your presence
  so that they can do nothing but good.
There is infinite space in Your garden;
  all men, all women are welcome here;
  all they need do is enter.

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 men?What d'you think about that, boss?And what do your books have to say about it.

All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.

Holy Mother Earth, the trees and all nature are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds.

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

As we walked in silence a passage from the Bhagavad Gita came to me:"We live in wisdom who see ourselves in all and all in us.We are forever free who have broken out of the ego cage of 'I and mine.' "The Bhagavad Gita described a voice within all of us that tells us each the same thing: what we want is not money, fame, or material possessions, but a world of peace, hearts filled with love, and an earth where the air and water are clean, the environment healthy.We want to rid ourselves of those unwanted habits and negative thoughts that prohibit us from living in peace with ourselves, the environment and our neighbor.