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earth
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People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle.
But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin
air,
but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle
which
we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds,
green leaves, the
black, curious eyes of a child--our own two eyes.
All is a miracle.
Thich Nhat Hanh |
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One of the hardest lessons we have to learn in
this life,
and one that many persons never learn, is to see the divine,
the
celestial, the pure in the common, the near at hand--
to see that heaven lies
about us here in this world.
John Burroughs
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My soul can find no staircase to Heaven
unless
it be through Earth's loveliness.
Michelangelo
You must bind up any wounds you
give the earth and you
must feed her to replace what you take from her. Every gift
she gives, every tree, every stalk of grain, costs her. Only if
you repay your debts will she continue to provide.
Morgan Llywelyn
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The
planet earth has a life span of eight billion years, give or take a few
million.
People have been around for approximately forty thousand years--a
virtual
blink in the cosmos. It is sad that we as a species are ravaging
the natural
world so fast that we are jeopardizing our survival. If we wipe
ourselves out,
it would be the height of folly, but the earth will survive even
us. It will eventually
restore itself. It might take a few thousand years, and it won't
be just
as it was before, but its life is stronger than death.
Charlotte
David Kasl |
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We are living beyond our
means. As a people we have developed
a lifestyle that is draining
the earth of its priceless and
irreplaceable resources without regard
for the future
of our children and people all around the world.
Margaret Mead |
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| When we heal the earth, we heal
ourselves.
David Orr
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We do
not inherit the earth from our ancestors;
we borrow it from our children.
Native
American Proverb |
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Our
earth is but a small star in a great universe.
Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet
unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided
by senseless distinctions of race, color or theory.
Stephen
Vincent Benet |
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There
is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother;
she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her
children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.
Bourke Coekran |
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How
far must suffering and misery go before we see that even
in the day of vast cities and powerful machines, the good earth is
our mother and that if we destroy her, we destroy ourselves?
Paul
Bigelow Sears |
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To
cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster
its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.
Wendell
Berry |
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Being born as
humans to this earth is a very sacred trust. We have a
sacred responsibility because of the special gift we have, which is
beyond
the fine gifts of the plant life, the fish, the woodlands, the birds,
and all the other living things on earth. We are able to take care
of them.
Audrey Shenandoah |
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The people
who are living on this planet need to break with the narrow
concept of human liberation, and begin to see liberation as something
that needs to be extended to the whole of the natural world. What
is
needed is the liberation of all things that support life--the air, the
waters,
the trees--all the things which support the sacred web of life.
Haudenosaunee |
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Leafing
idly through The Home Planet, I stop at a picture
of Earth floating against the black velvet of space.
Africa and Europe are visible under swirling white clouds,
but the predominant color is blue. This was the one
picture from the Apollo missions that told the whole
story--how small the planet is in the vast sprawl
of space, how fragile its environments are.
Seen from space, Earth has no national borders,
no military zones, no visible fences. Quite the
opposite. You can see how storm systems swirling
above a continent may well affect the grain yield
half a world away. The entire atmosphere of the
planet--all the air we breathe, all the sky we
fly through, even the ozone layer--is visible as
the thinnest rind. The picture eloquently
reminds one that Earth is a single organism.
Diane
Ackerman |
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If the Earth
does grow inhospitable
toward human presence, it is primarily
because we have lost our sense of
courtesy toward the Earth and its
inhabitants, our sense of gratitude,
our willingness to recognize the
sacred character of habitat, our
capacity for the awesome, for
the numinous quality of
every earthly reality.
Thomas Berry |

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Earth teach me stillness
as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
as the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
as dry fields weep with rain.
Ute prayer |
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Who is our neighbor: the Samaritan?
the outcast? the enemy? Yes, yes,
of course. But it is also the whale, the dolphin, and the rain
forest. Our neighbor
is the entire community of life, the entire universe. We must love
it all as ourselves.
Brian Patrick |
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May
our walking on earth be gentle as the union of the butterfly and the
flower.
traditional
Buddhist blessing |
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Planet
earth is my home, and I am committed to its care. In gratitude,
I acknowledge the gift I’ve been given and accept my responsibility
to care for it. The earth and all its bounty are divinely created
and
sustained. Deeply grateful for both bounty and balance, I realize
that
planet earth is a gift from God for all people of the world—in
the past, now, and for generations to come.
unattributed |
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