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Creation
We are the result of creation, as is the world around us. Experiencing the various elements of creation teaches us boundless lessons about what it means to be human.
Water shows us, as it gracefully flows with the twists and turns of the river, that we must learn to adapt to the external obstacles that inevitably come our way. Resisting the current leads to exhaustion, while embracing it brings ease and progression.
The air, light and free, holds a vital lesson. It whispers to us to rise above our shortcomings, to elevate ourselves beyond the confines of self-doubt and insecurity. Just as air fills every space it touches, we should expand our horizons and not get trapped in a bubble of our own making.
Fire, a symbol of transformation, teaches us the necessity of letting go of the old to make way for the new. It demonstrates what it means to be courageous as it blazes through the obstacles blocking its path, allowing new life to emerge from the ashes.
Earth, the nurturing mother, instructs us to provide fertile ground for the cycles of life to begin anew. Like the land, we, too, must tend to the soil of our minds, clearing weeds while fostering growth and renewal.
Observing the world around us offers insights into our own creation. Just as flowers open at their own pace, people grow and bloom with their own unique timing. On this planet, we learn the art of coexisting harmoniously with the world around us and our own selves, maintaining a balance that fosters mutual well-being and growth.
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Etymological explanation for Nature:
late 13c., “restorative powers of the body, bodily processes; powers of growth.”
mid 14c., “the forces or processes of the material world; that which produces living things and maintains order.”
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Could the same forces that maintain order in the world also maintain order in the body?
The finest steel must go through the hottest fire.
The sweetest flowers must endure the harshest winter.
The strongest people must face the greatest challenges.
Unknown
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
Carl Sagan, Cosmos
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
Plutarch
“I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea … It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.”
Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.
John Muir
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Unknown
“There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
there is rapture on the lonely shore,
there is society where none intrudes,
by the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”
Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”
John Keats, On the Grasshopper and Cricket
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Even in the darkest of times, the earth always gives us something to find beauty in, whether it is a sunrise, a flower blooming or the sounds of a songbird.
Darkness and light coexist in equal measure, just as night and day succeed each other. Even the happiest of lives must encompass a certain amount of sorrow, for without sadness, joy would lose its significance.
Based on the teachings of Carl Jung
The love of nature is the beginning of all art.
Unknown
The most meaningful education is one that goes beyond the mere transmission of information and instead cultivates a deep sense of harmony between our lives and the entirety of existence. We must strive to understand ourselves, our place in the world, and our relationship to the universe.
Based on the teachings of Rabindranath Tagore
In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.
Alice Walker
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
However long the night, the dawn will break.
African proverb
“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Enlightenment is simply the realization of the true nature of reality. It is intimacy with all things.
Dogen Zenji
The creation of life on Earth was probably the greatest marvel in the universe.
Unknown
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, History
At first I thought I was fighting to save the trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity.
Adapted from Chico Mendes
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion
“Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
John F. Kennedy, Peace Speech at American University
“I am glad I will not be young in a future without wilderness.”
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.
Euclid
“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
Isaac Newton, Opticks
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
Unknown
No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.
Heraclitus
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Even if we try to recreate an experience, we will never be able to do so perfectly. We are constantly changing, as is the world around us.
We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own – indeed to embrace the whole of creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder.
Wangari Maathai
Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“A tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it.”
Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
There exists something formlessly created,
Arising before the heavens and the earth.
Profoundly quiet, incredibly subtle,
Autonomous and unchanging,
In constant circulation, endlessly enduring.
It can be regarded as the origin of the world.
Its name eludes me,
Referring to it, I call it Tao
Compelled to describe it, I call it great.
Adapted from the Tao te Ching
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Jen Hitze 