An Integrated Symbiotic Whole
“The Future Is Now: The Significance Of Precognition” (Arthur W. Osborn)
“Whenever we look at nature and at all phenomena we find it impossible to put our fingers on boundary lines which are definite limits of independent existence. A thing which seems to be separate from one point of view is found from another to be related, and therefore dependent on other existences. Nature is an integrated symbiotic Whole.”
–Arthur W. Osborne (English-born Australian Theosophist and Writer, 1891-1976)
Investigating the Universe
“It is every one’s duty to investigate the mysteries and wonderful secrets which the Creator has infused into all things.”
–Basilius Valentinus (a.k.a. Basil Valentine, German 15th Century Alchemist and Canon of the Benedictine Priory of Sankt Peter in Erfurt, Germany)
Nature and Technology
“The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology.”
–Ernst Friedrich (“E. F.”) Schumacher (German-born British Economist and Developer of Concepts of Intermediate Technology and Author of Small is Beautiful, 1911-1977)
“Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered” (E. F. Schumacher)
Laws of Nature
“Laws of Nature are God’s thoughts thinking themselves out in the orbits and the tides.”
–Charles Henry Parkhurst (American Clergyman and Reformer, 1842-1933)
Everything In Nature Is Attached to Everything Else
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
–John Muir (Scottish-born American Naturalist, Writer, Founder of the Sierra Club, and “The Father of the National Park System,” 1838-1914)
The Art of Sauntering
“It takes days of practice to learn the art of sauntering. Commonly we stride through the out-of-doors too swiftly to see more than the most obvious and prominent things. For observing nature, the best pace is a snail’s pace.”
–Edwin Way Teale (American Naturalist and Pulitzer Prize -Winning Writer, 1899-1980)
“Circle of the Seasons (Edwin Way Teale Library of Nature Classics)” (Edwin Way Teale)
The Wisdom of the Woods
“How deep our sleep last night in the mountain’s heart, beneath the trees and stars, hushed by solemn-sounding waterfalls and many small soothing voices in sweet accord whispering peace!
And our first pure mountain day, warm, calm, cloudless, –how immeasurable it seems, how serenely wild! I can scarcely remember its beginning.
Along the river, over the hills, in the ground, in the sky, spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm, new life, new beauty, unfolding, unrolling in glorious exuberant extravagance–new birds in their nests, new winged creatures in the air, and new leaves, new flowers, spreading, shining, rejoicing everywhere.”
–John Muir (Scottish-born American Naturalist, Writer, Founder of the Sierra Club, and “The Father of the National Park System,” 1838-1914)
“My First Summer in the Sierra: Illustrated Edition” (John Muir)
All Living Things Are Individual Instruments
“Kinship with All Life” (J. Allen Boone)
“All living things are individual instruments through which the Mind of the Universe thinks, speaks and acts. We are all interrelated in a common accord, a common purpose and a common good. We are members of a vast cosmic orchestra, in which each living instrument is essential to the complementary and harmonious playing of the whole.”
–J. Allen Boone (American Author, Film Producer and Correspondent for the Washington Post who specialized in Nonverbal Communication with Animals, 1882-1965)
Fear of the Unknown
“Always in big woods, when you leave familiar ground and step off alone to a new place, there will be, along with feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown, and it is your bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are understanding the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is the experience of our essential loneliness, for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes common ground, and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.”
–Wendell Berry (American Poet, Novelist and Essayist, 1934-)
“The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky’s Red River Gorge” (Wendell Berry)
The Power of Nature
“The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Poet and Essayist, 1803-1882)
