Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Starhawk, 5 Sacred Things and Earth Activist Training
The Earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth.
Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them.
To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standard by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.
All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance; only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity.
To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible.
To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives.
~ Starhawk - The Fifth Sacred Thing
& while at Starhawks Tangled Web, filled with projects & writings, check out the Earth Activist Training (Eat) - Planting the Seeds of Change.
Another world is possible; learn the skills to create it. A 2 week intensive course that synergizes permaculture, effective activism, nature awareness, and spirituality.
Hi Keiko,
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I love this post! Very fitting for this time of year, i think!!!!
Hey Michelle, better and better all the time - & you? Hugs!
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