“What insights about our human psyches appear when we return to Earth, when we remember that we are related to everything that has ever existed, when we reinstall ourselves in a world of spring-summer-fall-winter, volcanoes, storms, surf, bison, mycelium, Moon, falcons, sand dunes, galaxies, and redwood groves?

What do we discover about ourselves when we consent again to being human animals — bipedal, omnivorous mammals with distinctive capacities for self-reflexive consciousness, dexterity, imagination, and speech?

In what ways will we choose to live when we fully remember the naturalness and ecological necessity of death?

Who will we see in the mirror when we face up to the present-day realities of human-caused mass extinction, ecosystem collapse, and climate destabilization?

And what mystery journey will unfold when we answer the alluring and dangerous summons now emanating from the human soul, from the dream of the Earth, and from an intelligent, evolving, ensouled Universe?”

~Bill Plotkin,
Animas Valley Institute

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Photo: High mountain meadow
by Nancy Lankston