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Nature

Healing and Nature

I write this today a few days ahead of the massive climate walk-outs being planned this Friday across my country. For the past several weeks we’ve had temperatures in the mid-nineties. I’ve been at a point of panic about our environment and experiencing a bit of hopelessness. Today’s blog is about how I approach these topics in balance with my spiritual life. When I first had my experiences of God and light, nature became much more alive to me. I was raised in a culture that disregarded nature. As a child I loved nature but had no language with which to approach it, and eventually stopped noticing it or feeling a part of it. My experience changed all of that. Nature pulsed with the beauty of...

Perspective

“Nothing in the life you lead is real, save your relationship with Me.” Conversations with God I sometimes find myself feeling down after reading about the environment, something about which I care deeply. It’s hard not to. We are in the midst of a mass extinction of species, the rainforests keep getting cut down, and there is plastic all over the ocean. I would love to be able to fix all of these issues overnight, and while I do my part, I am just one person of many. In these times it helps me to remember that these issues are merely the result of actions by humans – it is a cause and effect. It feels hopeless and almost condemned, but I know we can begin to heal and fix this. Happily, many places...

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Walking Gently on the Earth

Take time today to step softly on the earth. The earth holds so much and is going through powerful changes. How can we honor her? This is not just about doing the right thing as it pertains to the environment. It means developing a completely new way of approaching nature. It means learning to respect nature. It means beginning to see the holiness within nature. It means living as part of an ecosystem and respecting the lives of all within it. In my society, in the world in which I was raised, the earth was here to be exploited. I never noticed trees with awe or appreciated birds and animals as creatures of God. Yes, I enjoyed nature as a kid would, climbing trees and playing...

Letting Nature Guide You

As I write to you, I’m sitting outside in our pocket of the city, listening to birds begin their chirping and watching the sunlight begin to brighten the sky. Though we live in an industrial city, I’m grateful for the pocket of nature we’ve created for ourselves. It’s never far from my mind that this land was once a forest populated by First Peoples who lived in greater harmony with the land. Though I live in this now-industrial city in a capitalistic society, nature is still here. Nature comes from God. Following the breath of nature puts us in touch with the heart of God. Growing up, I did not know how out of touch I was with nature until I learned how to be in...

Being with Trees

Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved trees. I’m sure many of you reading this have memories of favorite trees from your childhood. Though I grew up in a city, we had a beloved tree we used to climb in the front yard, and another tree we loved to run circles around at school. Though I don’t remember thinking about it much at the time, so many of my childhood memories are tied to these trees. Sadly, we were told we couldn’t keep climbing the tree in the front yard due to several electrical wires running through it, and they eventually cut the tree in the playground down. Thankfully, as an adult I live in a neighborhood with many trees still standing.  Trees are powerful...

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