"One has only to develop a relationship with a certain place, where the land knows you and experience that the trees, the Earth and Nature are extending their love and light to you to know there is so much we can receive from the Earth to fill our hearts and souls."
--INTI MELASQUEZ, Inca
~*~
"Man is an aspect of nature, and nature itself is a manifestation of primordial religion. Even the word `religion' makes an unnecessary
separation, and there is no word for it in the Indian tongues. Nature is the `Great Mysterious,' the `religion before religion,' the profound
intuitive apprehension of the true nature of existence attained by sages of all epochs, everywhere on Earth; the whole universe is sacred, man is the whole universe, and the religious ceremony is life itself, the common acts of every day."
--PETER MATTHIESSEN, Indian Country
~*~
Earth Teach Me
Earth teach me stillness
as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me caring
as parents who secure their 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 Indians of
North America
