Favorite Quotes

Scientists are very eager to say that we oughtn’t to personify elements in nature for fear of anthropomorphizing. And what I mean when I talk about the personhood of all beings, plants included, is not that I am attributing human characteristics to them, not at all. I’m attributing plant characteristics to plants. Just as it would be disrespectful to try and put plants in the same category through the lens of anthropomorphism, I think it’s also deeply disrespectful to say that they have no consciousness, no awareness, no being-ness at all. And this denial of personhood to all other beings is increasingly being refuted by science itself…

I can’t think of a single scientific study in the last few decades that has demonstrated that plants or animals are dumber than we think. It’s always the opposite, right? What we’re revealing is the fact that they have extraordinary capacities, which are so unlike our own, but we dismiss them because, well, if they don’t do it like animals do it, then they must not be doing anything, when, in fact, they’re sensing their environment, responding to their environment in incredibly sophisticated ways. The science which is showing that plants have capacity to learn, to have memory, it’s really — we’re at the edge of a wonderful revolution in really understanding the sentience of other beings.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer
http://www.onbeing.org/program/robin-wall-kimmerer-the-intelligence-in-all-kinds-of-life/transcript/8467#main_content

I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
Dawna Markova

A sacred illness is one that educates us and alters us from the inside out, provides experiences and therefore knowledge that we could not possibly achieve in any other way.
Unknown Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.
Unknown

If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.
Natalie Goldberg, author, Writing Down the Bones

When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills. Chinese proverb

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein

The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.
Rick Warren

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier.  The way it actually works is the reverse… you must first BE who you really are, then DO what you need to do, in order to HAVE what you want.
Margaret Young

True empowerment comes from taking action, of knowing what you want and recognizing it when it shows up. Empowerment also takes a huge commitment, especially to yourself.
Debby Hoffman, Professional Speaker    www.debbyhoffman.com

When you set goals, you are making things happen by focusing your attention, determining your choices, shaping outcomes, and attracting opportunities.
Barbara Stanny, author, Overcoming Underearning

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
Marian Wright Edelman

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.
Anais Nin

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Nelson Mandela

We have come to a time and place of great urgency.
The fate of future generations rests in our hands.We must understand the two ways we are free to follow, as we choose: the positive way or the negative way, the spiritual way or the material way. It’s our own choice—each of ours and all of ours.You yourself are the one who must decide. You alone—and only you—can make this crucial choice. Whatever you decide is what you’ll be, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives. You can’t escape the consequences of your own decision. On your decision depends the fate of the entire world. You must decide. You can’t avoid it.
Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind. Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? Know that you are essential to this world. Believe that! Understand both the blessing and the burden of that.
You are desperately needed to save the soul of this world. Did you think you were put here for something less? In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending!
Chief Arvol Looking Horse   www.wolakota.org