|
"You must teach your children that the
ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the Land, tell your children that the
Earth is rich with the lives of our kin ... all things are connected....
....The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs
to the Earth."
---Si' a'b, Chief Seathl, Suquamish/Duwamish.
"The Earth is a living being
The stones are her bones
The water is her blood
The wind is her breath
The clouds are her hair
We are born from the Earth
We will return to her."
---Don Apolinar Ramos Quispe, Curandero, Kallawaya, Amazonia.
"What I believe is that it is important to preserve Nature,
because that is life. If the natural environment disappears, really, the earth will suffer a tremendous catastrophe."
---Guillermo Arevalo, Shipibo-Conibo, Curandero, Peru.
"The Land nurtures the people by sharing its power, giving
songs for ceremonies, herbs for healing, and visions for strength. In turn, people honour the Land by treating it with
respect, performing ceremonies, and singing songs of thanks."
---Joseph Epes Brown with Emily Cousins, Teaching Spirits.
"You just take care of the Land, and it takes care
of you."
---Virginia Poole, Seminole/Miccosukee from the Everglades.
"Together we can end the Holocaust against the
environment."
---Traditional Circle of Elders,
Haida Gwaii.
"When the Forest dies, we shall die."
---Unknown, Pygmy, Congo.
"When men destroy a tree they destroy an entire library."
---Pablo Amaringo, Painter, Peru.
"...in the end the Spirit is merely energy...
...natives do not merely think of the tree in an abstract
manner, they think of the tree in its relationship to man, that is: the tree and man, the river and man, the fish and
man.
...another name for us shamans should be environmentalists.
...who are the real 'savages,' those who wear ties, speak
many languages and live within the technological community, or those who live within the tribe and who showing absolute logic,
exist in perfect community with Nature?"
---Dr. Jorge Gonzales, PhD., Amazonian Shaman, President, University
of San Martin, Peru.
"Very seldom now do I catch one familiar note from these
early warblers of the woods. They have all passed away...I now listen to the songs of other birds which have come with the
advance of civilization...and, like the wildwood birds which our fathers used to hold their breath to hear, they sing in concert,
without pride, without envy, without jealousy --- alike in the forest and field; alike before wigwam or castle; alike before
savage or sage...alike for chief or king."
---Chief Simon Pokagon, Potawatomi. I have spoken, American History Through the Voices
of the Indians.
"One way way of teaching is through Nature. For instance, the Tree of
Peace is the white pine with four roots extended to the four corners of the earth to embrace all people. It has the guardian
bird --- the eagle --- perched on the top to warn the people. The eternal central sun, the source of all life, is beyond that
tree."
---Sara Smith, Six Nations. The Book of Elders, The Life Stories of Wisdom of Great
American Indians.
"Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle
of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of Nature and it's beauty."
---Albert Einstein.
"Certainly, it is not difficult to see the parallels in several
cultural movements that seek to correct the dangerous imbalance in humanity's relation to Nature: in deep ecology and ecofeminism,
which call for a respecful, egalitarian, ecocentric attitude towards the natural world; in organic gardening and farming movements,
which seek to return to tradtional methods avoiding chemical fertilizers and pesticides; in the movement to increased use
of herbal, nutritional and complementary healing modalities with less reliance of high-tech interventions; and in several
other philosophical, scientific and religious movements including bioregionalism, ecopsychology, living sytems theory, creation
sprituality, ecotheology, and others."
---Ralph Metzner, Human Consciousness and the Spirits of Nature.
"This century will not be remembered two hundred years hence
for it's technological advances or its wars. It's going to be remembered as the age in which we either passively accepted
or actively endorsed the massive destruction of both cultural and biological diversities. There were 15,000 languages
spoken on this planet one hundred years ago. Today there are probably 6,500 spoken. And linguists tell us that in
another one hundred years there will be only 350. And every language is nothing more or less than a unique manifestation
of Spirit."
---Wade Davis, Author, Botanist, Adventurer, interviewed by Peter Gorman,
HIGHTIMES Magazine.
|
