The battle we have fought, and are still fighting for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it. …So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be glad to find anything so surely good and noble to strive for.
--john muir
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Trying to live a spiritual life in modern society is the most difficult path one can walk. It is a path of pain, of isolation, and of shaken faith, but that is the only way that our Vision can become reality. Thus the true Quest in life is to live the philosophy of the Earth within the confines of man. There is no church or temple we need to seek peace, for ours are the temples of the wilderness. There are no spiritual leaders, for our hearts and the Creator are our only leaders. Our numbers are scattered; few speak our language or understand the things that we live. Thus we walk this path alone, for each Vision, each Quest, is unique unto the individual. But we must walk within society or our Vision dies, for a man not living his Vision is living death.
--stalking wolf
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life is paradise,
and we are all in paradise,
but we refuse to see it.
if we would,
we should have heaven on earth
the very next day
--fyodor dostoevsky
====================
and i’m disgusted at times
by things that i see
like mountains with holes
where trees used to be
and i’m disgraced here and there
when i look to the sea
all the pollution we feed her
well some comes from me
and i’m uneasy at times
for the bridges i cross
when palings are missing
and things are in knots
and i guess i should say
this is all that we need
music and peace
and the gift of the Tree
--xavier rudd
====================
the woods do that to you,
they always look familiar,
long lost,
like the face of a long-dead relative,
like an old dream,
like a piece of forgotten song
drifting across water,
most of all like golden eternities
of past childhood or past manhood
and all the living
and the dying
and the heartbreak
that went on a million years ago
and the clouds as they pass overhead
seem to testify
by their own lonesome familiarity)
to this feeling.
--jack kerouac from the dharma bums
====================
what goes up
they say is coming down
i got my head in the sky
and my roots in the ground
i'm not patriotic man
for what it's worth
i pledge allegiance to this land
and my Mother Earth
--john butler (trio)
====================
rise like lions after slumber,
in unvanquishable number,
shake your chains to earth like dew,
which in sleep had fallen on you,
ye are many,
they are few.
--percy bysshe shelley from 'the mask of anarchy'
====================
where men cannot live, gods fare no better
--cormac mccarthy