Words Of The Wise Table of Contents
Words Of The Wise is a series consisting of 5 parts.
- Words Of The Wise: Terry Tempest Williams
- Words Of The Wise: Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Words Of The Wise: Mahatma Gandhi
- Words Of The Wise: Eleanor Roosevelt
- Words Of The Wise: Maya Angelou
Today, draw some inspiration from Terry Tempest Williams—an American author, activist and conservationist.
Her work has focused on issues of our interaction and integrity with the natural world, and she continues to challenge our values of environmental ethics.
Williams is the author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field; Desert Quartet; Leap; Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert; The Open Space of Democracy, and Finding Beauty in a Broken World.
Read and reflect on her poignant and passionate words:
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“To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.”
“Our sense of community and compassionate intelligence must be extended to all life forms, plants, animals, rocks, rivers, and human beings. This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.”
“We can try to kill all that is native, string it up by its hind legs for all to see, but spirit howls and wildness endures.”
“Faith is the centerpiece of a connected life. It allows us to live by the grace of invisible strands. It is a belief in a wisdom superior to our own. Faith becomes a teacher in the absence of fact.”
“Landscape shapes culture.”
“How do we remain faithful to our own spiritual imagination and not betray what we know in our own bodies? The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy.”
“Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.”
“What is real to me is the power of our awareness when we are focused on something beyond ourselves. It is a shaft of light shining in a dark corner. Our ability to shift our perceptions and seek creative alternatives to the conundrums of modernity is in direct proportion to our empathy. Can we imagine, witness, and ultimately feel the suffering of another.”
“People talk about medium. What is your medium? My medium as a writer has been dirt, clay, sand—what I could touch, hold, stand on, and stand for—Earth. My medium has been Earth. Earth in correspondence with my mind.”
“Our kinship with Earth must be maintained; otherwise, we will find ourselves trapped in the center of our own paved-over souls with no way out.”
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October 23, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Who can tell me that in their early childhood- that they did not feel a kinship with nature her beauty, and the way you were embraced by every aspect of your small, but glorious welcome.