WOPILA

For the Lakota people, giving thanks is translated into "Wopila." Wopila means giving thanks to Creator and all aspects of life. The Lakota people have Wopila ceremony every new moon. At this time they pray and thank Creator for all their life. The families or an individual can feed people in the ceremony and offer spirit food to the ancestors. Sometimes people have a "give away" after the ceremony. They say that Wopila makes a person truly a human being and it brings you closer to Wakan Tanka. When you are pure in your heart, it is possible to pray on the new moon time and give thanks, no matter where you are. Thank you, Richard Moves Camp

Jung x10

Reverence for life

"The ethics of reverence for life makes no distinction between high and low, more precious and less precious lives.  It has good reason for this omission... How can we know what importance other living organisms have in themselves and in terms of the universe?... To the truly ethical man, all life is sacred."

--Albert Schweitzer

Man's Capacity

"Man has the capacity to love, not just his own species, but life in all its shapes and forms.  This empathy with the interknit web 

 of life is the highest spiritual expression I know of."

-- Loren Eiseley

Talk to the animals

"One thing to remember is to talk to the animals.  If you do, they will talk back to you.  But if you don't talk to the animals, 

 they won't talk back to you, then you won't understand, and when you don't understand you will fear and when you fear and you will destroy the animals and if you destroy the animals, you will destroy yourself."

-- Chief Dan George

Talmud

"From the man comes the white sperm... bones, tendons, whites of eyes...  From the woman comes the red sperm... blood, flesh, iris of the eye...  And from God comes the shine of the face, the under-standing, insight, the seeing of the eyes, the going of the feet...."
~ Talmud

Age

"If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore the this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse." - Paul Hawken in his book "You are Brilliant and the Earth is Hiring."  

The Great Blending

For intervals, then, throughout our lives we savor a concurrence, the great blending of our chance selves with what sustains all chance. We ride the wave and are the wave. And with renewed belief inner and outer we find our talk turned to prayer, our prayer into truth: for an interval, early, we become at home in the world. - William Stafford

Who Am I?

"I am not I. 

I am this one 

walking beside me whom I do not see, 

whom at times I manage to visit, 

and whom at other times I forget; 

who remains calm and silent while I talk, 

and forgives, gently, when I hate, 

who walks where I am not, 

and who will remain standing when I die."

- Juan Ramon Jimenez 

translated by Robert Bly