Circle of Friends

To the lovers of the wild

These mountains are not

A hundred miles away

Their spiritual power

And the goodness of the sky

Make them near

As a circle of friends

You cannot feel yourself

Out of doors

Plain, sky

And mountains ray

Beauty which you feel

You bathe in these spirit-beams

Turning round and round

As if warming

At a camp fire

Presently you loose consciousness

Of your own separate existance

And become part and parcel

Of nature

-John Muir

Higher Laws

No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal - that is your success.  All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.

The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little stardust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

-Henry D. Thoreau (Walden)

To our elders who teach us

Of our creation and our past

So we may preserve Mother Earth

For ancestors yet to come

We are the land

To our brothers and sisters

And all living things

Across Mother Earth

Her beauty we've destroyed

And denied the honor

The Creator has given

Each individual

The truth lies in our hearts

All my relations

-Native American prayer

PEACEMAKING VOWS:

I vow to be Oneness

I vow to be Diversity

I vow to be Harmony

I vow to penetrate The Unknown

I vow to bear witness

I vow to heal myself and others

I vow to not kill

I vow to not steal

I vow to not be greedy

I vow to not tell lies

I vow to not be ignorant

I vow to not talk about others' errors and faults

I vow to not elevate myself by blaming others

I vow to not be stingy

I vow to not be angry

I vow to not speak ill of myself and others

-Bernie Glassman

If you've come this far, then perhaps you are ready for The Heart Sutra