“This is what you shall do:  Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyranny, argue not concerning God.”  ~ Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass

“If you are doing the right thing for the earth, she’s giving you great company.”  ~ Vandana Shiva

“Most people do not see, understand, or care very much about this catastrophe of the planet because they are overwhelmingly preoccupied with grave psychological problems.  The environmental crisis is rooted in the psychological crisis of the modern individual.”  ~ Glenn Parton, The Machine in our Heads

“[How do I do it?] Well, it’s always a mystery, because you don’t know why you get depleted or recharged. But this much I know. I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential. And I’ve learned from the Bhagavad-Gita and other teachings of our culture to detach myself from the results of what I do, because those are not in my hands. The context is not in your control, but your commitment is yours to make, and you can make the deepest commitment with a total detachment about where it will take you. You want it to lead to a better world, and you shape your actions and take full responsibility for them, but then you have detachment. And that combination of deep passion and deep detachment allows me to take on the next challenge, because I don’t cripple myself, I don’t tie myself in knots. I function like a free being. I think getting that freedom is a social duty because I think we owe it to each not to burden each other with prescription and demands. I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with fearlessness and joy.”  ~ Vandana Shiva, physicist

Life consuming life is an inescapable relationship. The real imperative to correcting our culture’s disease is insisting on excellent relationships.  ~ Michael Carter, Kingfisher’s Song:  Memories Against Civilization

We have a beautiful mother
Her hills are buffaloes
Her buffaloes hills.

We have a beautiful mother
Her oceans are wombs
Her wombs oceans.

We have a beautiful mother
Her teeth the white stones at the edge
of the water
the summer grasses
her plentiful hair.

We have a beautiful mother
Her green lap
immense
Her brown embrace
eternal
Her blue body everything
we know.

~ Jean Shinoda Bolen

The songbirds and the salmon need your heart, no matter how weary, because even a broken heart is still made of love.   So, gather your heart, and join with every living being.  With love as our First Cause, how can we fail?  ~ Derrick Jensen, Deep Green Resistance preface