By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
1. Attention
The great Catholic writer Ernesto Cardenal in Abide in Love observes: "Everything in nature has a trademark, God's trademark: the stripes on a shell and the stripes on a zebra; the grain of the wood and the veins of the dry leaf; the markings on the dragonfly's wings and the pattern of stars on a photographic plate; the panther's coat and the epidermal cells of the lily petal; the structure of atoms and galaxies. All bear God's fingerprints." Go for a walk and look for God's trademarks. Better still, use a camera to document evidence of God's fingerprints in the nature.
The great Catholic writer Ernesto Cardenal in Abide in Love observes: "Everything in nature has a trademark, God's trademark: the stripes on a shell and the stripes on a zebra; the grain of the wood and the veins of the dry leaf; the markings on the dragonfly's wings and the pattern of stars on a photographic plate; the panther's coat and the epidermal cells of the lily petal; the structure of atoms and galaxies. All bear God's fingerprints." Go for a walk and look for God's trademarks. Better still, use a camera to document evidence of God's fingerprints in the nature.
2. Being Present
Annie Dillard has written: 'My God, what a world. There is no accounting for one second of it." Get personal with one small piece of the Earth. Sit in the dirt in your backyard. Play in the sand at the beach. Roll in the grass. Stand under a waterfall. Sense the Earth as an animal senses it. Be really present with your planetary host.
3. Connections
Share a story with family or friends, or write in your journal, about a time when you were humbled, soothed, or awed by something in the natural world. How did you feel connected to nature?
4. Devotion
Adopt a tree, a park, a beach, a waterway, or a piece of wild land, and look out for its welfare. Clean up in and around it. Write letters to officials and newspapers on issues that affect it. In its honor, include in your daily prayers petitions to alleviate the sufferings of dying plants and trees, polluted rivers and oceans, and toxic lands.
5. Hospitality
Invite some bugs into your house for an evening. Rent the fascinating and illuminating video
6. Joy
Listen to Three Dog Night's classic rock song
7. Justice
Hold a Council of All Beings in your school, congregation, or community center. Each participant in the circle speaks for another life-form — an animal, plant, tree, body of water, etc., expressing the being's concerns. You might talk about threats to the being's habitat or freedom, the effects of pollution, natural disasters, and wars. After all the beings have spoken, talk as humans about your responsibilities to correct some of the environmental and cultural injustices you have identified.
8. Openness
Embrace your environment. Walk around the perimeter of your home. Explore it as if being there for the first time. What do you see, feel, hear, smell? Continue this process as you move further out into your community. Make a list of things you discover that you have never seen before.
9. Teachers
Find a teacher in nature and let her give you a lesson today. Here's an example from Natalie Goldberg: "Be tough the way a blade of grass is: rooted, willing to lean, and at peace with what is around it."
10. Unity
Susan Seddon Boulet's shamanic paintings feature the intertwined figures of humans and animals. Her art brings us to a fresh appreciation of interspecies unity. Check out the book
11. Wonder
Set up a wonder table in your home or classroom. Make it a place where people can display wonders of the nature world they have found — actual examples or photographs of them.
12. You
Rededicate yourself to the live lightly and respectfully on the planet. Repeat this vow:
We join with the Earth and with each other.
To bring new life to the land
To restore the waters
To refresh the air
We join with the Earth and with each other.
To renew the forests
To care for the plants
To protect the creatures
We join with the Earth and with each other.
To celebrate the seas
To rejoice in the sunlight
To sing the song of the stars
We join with the Earth and with each other.
To recreate the human community
To promote justice and peace
To remember our children
We join with the Earth and with each other.
We join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery:
for the healing of the Earth and the renewal of all life.
— U.N. Environmental Sabbath Program
quoted in Prayers for Healing edited by Maggie Oman
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Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle, 1855
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~Native American Proverb
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